Quantity has a quality all its own 3 min read
that sentence is the bio of Yishan Wong, the former Reddit CEO, in Quora.
as you may have know, Reddit is one of the largest UGC (User Generated Content) platform in the world. so big that many AI apps read and cite their content.
it’s an interesting personal choice.
you can write all other sentence in the world,
but you pick that sentence instead.
why?
Yishan
from Yishan’s words:
“It’s an ironic quote originally attributed to (unfortunately) Joseph Stalin.
During WW2, the Soviet Union was known for using waves of human soldiers to attempt to overwhelm smaller numbers of better-equipped and more experienced German fighters. During that time and for some time afterwards, the Soviet Union was culturally known for resorting to using greater numbers of cheaper items (whether it be humans or machines) to face off against more advanced adversaries who would typically be smaller in number.
In daily life, it’s an oft-overlooked tactical option: sometimes you might not be able to make do with one or a handful of something, but if the item is cheap enough, it’s possible that if you have a thousand, a step-jump in utility can be found.”
From where does the phrase “quantity has a quality all its own” originate?
Stalin
this is the mindset of Joseph Stalin.
Nazi soldiers & tanks are better trained, better armed. Soviet has under-equipped, less trained tanks & soldiers.
Nazi only made a few thousand tanks during the entire war.
then Stalin decided that they will produce thousands of low quality tanks *every month*.
the winner of the fight will be decided by in the numbers:
who can overwhelm the superior tech and training.
Stalin throw cheap tanks, overwhelming the Nazi’s high quality but fewer tanks.
Soviet lost even more soldiers than the German.
(not exactly soldiers, because they use peasants and ordinary citizens as well).
but in the end, Soviet prevailed.
Quantity Has a Quality All of Its Own – Elena Grossfeld
large quantity
“never underestimate the power of stupid people in large groups,” said George Carlin.
when large crowd working together for something,
they can reach the state of quality.
mass quantity, produces its own characteristic.
mass quantity has its own quality.
the same exact principle can be applied to UGC startups too.
like Facebook, or Threads. or Quora.
or Amazon. or AirBnb.
low quality
they do have many low quality content.
but, among those low quality contents, there must be some high quality contents.
and that high quality content, is unique, and cannot be found in everywhere else.
and the platforms that provide a very wide UGC, will in the end win against the smaller but better platforms.
that is the principle of User Generated Content.
application
this can be applied to other business aspects as well.
sometimes its better for someone to have multiple businesses,
with mediocre revenue, than just one business with high revenue.
think of franchise, or other formats.
sometimes your business can easily win against a high quality competitor
by opening overwhelming lower quality branches.
while all others think in quality,
sometimes all you need to do is just to think in parallel with quantities.
because there is this strength in numbers.