
90:9:1 – the odd ratio that technology keeps creating - andyjohnson0
http://www.theguardian.com/technology/2015/dec/12/ratio-technology-mozilla-firefox-os-90-9-1
======
GavinMcG
I think the article describes exactly the two factors in play:

> The more you look for it in networked environments, the more frequently some
> sort of 90:9:1 ratio seems to emerge once the market matures.

First, of _course_ something will show up the more you look for it.

Second, "once the market matures" is completely up in the air. Was the market
immature in November 2009, when IE had 65%, Firefox 24%, and Safari, Chrome,
and Opera each 2-4% of the browser market? Is it mature now? I don't think
"immature" is the word that comes to mind to describe the browser market, for
many. Yet there's certainly no 90:9:1 ratio in browser share currently.

~~~
cmarschner
Technically the browser "market" is not a market, because browsers are for
free. That's very unusual.

Hence whoever invests most in its development + distribution can gain market
share. Similar to Android, Chrome is strategically important for Google to
keep users in their ecosystem, so it makes sense for them to overinvest. It's
just a loss leader paid for by advertising dollars. Also distribution is cheap
for them through google.com.

Microsoft has kept IE in the Windows org, and for the longest time did not
invest enough to pay down technical debt. For the longest time investments
couldn't be justified with advertisement dollars, so after they "won" the
browser war with Netscape's demise they cut down much of the IE team.

Firefox devs paid down Netscape's technical debt for free to escape the IE
monopoly. But distribution is a problem for them since they neither own the
desktop OS nor the web's primary entry point.

~~~
kami8845
It's still a market if every product is free. And they're not even really
free, you pay with potential advertising revenue, vendor lock-in and with data
that you generate.

~~~
cmarschner
Well they are just as much of a product as free parking is for a convenience
store. The browser is not the product. You are the product, sold to
advertisers.

------
xyzzy4
Looks like somebody rediscovered how power law distributions are prevalent in
so many different statistics.

------
Gladdyu
Welcome to the power law
([https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Power_law](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Power_law))

------
mrcactu5
Is this just the geometric series? 1, 9, 9×9 = 81

The other ratios in the article are similar: 85:14:1 or 91:8:1

This is just basic Social Network Analysis
([https://www.coursera.org/course/sna](https://www.coursera.org/course/sna))

This rule has two parts, given a choice of selections

    
    
        A: there are only a few "key players" 
        even if the original selection was very large
    
        B: the ratio of #1 to #2 is about the same as for #2 to #3  
        

This is why multiple choice always have 3 choices typically \- we do not even
notice #4...

\- - - - - - - - - - - - - - -

loosely related:

Viggo Brun wrote about algorithms to find to simple ratios... he was trying to
tune a piano!

He calculated the ideal tuning ratios are close to some simple fractions

    
    
        log(2/1):log(3/2):log(4/3) ≈ 12:7:5 ≈ 53:31:22
    

[http://retro.seals.ch/digbib/view2?pid=ens-001:1964:10::21](http://retro.seals.ch/digbib/view2?pid=ens-001:1964:10::21)

------
cbr
"the only product that has ever been advertised on Google’s front page"

The Nexus One and 7 were too:

* [http://searchengineland.com/surprise-googles-home-page-promo...](http://searchengineland.com/surprise-googles-home-page-promoting-nexus-one-32987)

* [http://www.cnet.com/news/googles-nexus-7-tablet-pops-up-in-r...](http://www.cnet.com/news/googles-nexus-7-tablet-pops-up-in-rare-home-page-ad/)

------
bsilvereagle
I'm not familiar with the HN API, but is it possible/can someone come up with
submitters:commenters:inactive accounts for say the past year to see if it
comes out close to 1:9:90? Does the "1% rule" seem to apply to HN?

~~~
tacos
Any site that you find interesting likely has an element or structure that
causes it to skew that pattern. Wikipedia doesn't follow that ratio, for
example. Also the metrics around social media stuff are so bizarre (and so
easily manipulated) that it's hard to get decent data. Trump's engagement
metrics on Twitter are in the fractions of a percent. CEO posts on LinkedIn
get a few hundred reads and four comments. So is that 100:1? Or is 400 reads
versus a million followers the important ratio? It's all over the place and
you can pluck whatever curve you want by selecting datasets and ignoring
important outside influences such as LinkedIn's idiotic design or Trump's
pacing of Tweets.

------
tylermauthe
_> Now look at desktop OS sales: the ratio stands in the most recent quarter
at about 91:8:1 between Microsoft’s Windows, Apple’s Mac OSX, and “self-build”
machines which probably get Linux._

This is a drastic oversimplification... Some of those Windows machines will
have Linux put on and many "self-build" machines will have Windows (or
Hackintosh OSX). The vast majority of the Windows and OSX sales will likely
stay as Windows or OSX boxes, so the data is still largely valid - but I feel
this particular measure is a bit of a reach.

Furthermore, we can say this is isolated to technology, but in my opinion this
happens in Facial Tissue sales just as often as tech. This is a law of human
preference: on average 90% of people follow the herd, 9% go for a close
alternative, 1% go hardcore.

This is even true of characters in TV shows! 90% of people favour the hero, 9%
are into the side-kick, 1% dig deep into some random character, possibly even
creating new backstories.

[edit: clarity]

------
ebbv
This is just one of those horse shit "rules" that you can find a lot of places
if you're willing to look for it and do some really liberal rounding.

------
SixSigma
Pareto ?

Robert Kiyosaki suggests 80/20 is an average but in the world of money, the
most suitable rule is 90/10.

[http://1-million-dollar-blog.com/what-is-9010-rule-of-
money/](http://1-million-dollar-blog.com/what-is-9010-rule-of-money/)

------
Double_Cast
Sometimes, things differ by orders of magnitude. News at 11.

[http://www.smbc-comics.com/index.php?id=3777](http://www.smbc-
comics.com/index.php?id=3777)

------
tacos
The article fails to provide a single example where those are the specific
ratios (versus arbitrary curves), provides a number of counterexamples, then
concludes "proven!" To wash off the stupid, I found myself re-reading this
excellent primer by Ben Golub (Harvard Dept. of Economics):

[https://www.quora.com/In-what-conditions-would-you-
expect-a-...](https://www.quora.com/In-what-conditions-would-you-expect-a-
power-law-distribution-curve-to-emerge?shar=1)

------
hodgesrm
While this article cites browsers as an example of 90:9:1 curiously I use 3 of
them, generally simultaneously:

Chrome - For work

Safari - For personal stuff

Firefox - For occasional stuff that falls on the other two browsers (sadly
more common than one would like)

In the case of browsers there is a huge amount of context related to things
like work and private online accounts, e.g., at Google. Using different
browsers is a simple way to keep your personalities separate.

~~~
ansgri
I agree. Browser vendors should recognize this to eat up the remaining
percents. It should be easy for me to have several fully isolated Chrome
instances with different desktop icons and clearly distinct windows (this is
where UI color-theming shines).

~~~
phamilton
Chrome user profiles does the trick for me.

~~~
ansgri
I'm somewhat wary of relying on profile switching. Is there a way to launch
several instances with different profiles concurrently?

~~~
Bjartr
Yup, it's got first class UI in Chrome. They even recently added an "open link
in <profile>" item in the right click menu for each profile you have.

------
tedmiston
85:14:1 for Android:iOS:Windows Phone might be right globally, but... that's
surely skewed by developing countries.

My gut feelings say iOS would be very dominant, but it'd be interesting to see
how the ratios compare in startup hubs to the rest of the U.S. Or, even
better, broken down by income level, state, or some other useful demographic
info.

Edit: Sounds like I should do some more research on Germany :).

~~~
digi_owl
I dunno. Fire up a map of Europe on Statcounter and you see Android everywhere
but UK, Scandinavia, and maybe Netherlands. The rest has Android sitting on
top (and i would hardly consider Germany a "developing nation").

~~~
tedmiston
Wow, their data is enlightening.

Sept to Nov 2015* by Mobile OS Worldwide
[http://gs.statcounter.com/#mobile_os-ww-
monthly-201509-20151...](http://gs.statcounter.com/#mobile_os-ww-
monthly-201509-201511-map)

These percentages are from the CSV export:

    
    
      Country  Android  iOS    WP
      -------  -------  -----  ----
      U.S.     46.81    50.7   1.63
      Germany  67.72    28.34  2.67
      UK       43.14    44.2   3.62
    
      European countries dominated by iOS
    
      - Denmark
      - Faroe Islands
      - Gibraltar
      - Guernsey
      - Isle of Man
      - Jersey
      - Liechtenstein
      - Luxembourg
      - Monaco
      - Norway
      - Sweden
      - Switzerland
      - United Kingdom (though 44.2% iOS vs. 43.14% Android)
    
      Asian countries dominated by iOS
    
      - Christmas Island
      - Japan
      - Macao
    

If you filter out the rich/small/weirder island nations, both lists are...
quite short.

A few more for the curious:

    
    
      Top 5 Android Countries by %:
    
      Country      %
      -----------  -----
      Myanmar      92.32
      Niue 	       87.05
      Iran 	       86.86
      North Korea  86.53
      Poland       86.31
    
      Top 5 iOS Countries by %:
    
      Country           %
      ----------------  -----
      Norfolk Island    77.27
      Christmas Island  71.74
      Monaco            70.07
      Japan             65.4
      Guernsey          62.04
    

*The free version limits to 3 months for a map.

~~~
nly
I don't know why iPhone is so popular in Japan, but the other 4 countries in
your top 5 are fairly small...perhaps this is driven by carrier deals?

~~~
bsder
Because the entrenched incumbents were pushing piles of garbage for phones
because they thought they had a walled garden due to Japanese language
support.

iPhones came in and blew a hole in that.

------
nabla9
This is caused by network externalities. Both direct and indirect network
externalities. When a product’s or platforms value to the user, third party
developer, or hardware manufacturer increases as the number of users of the
product grows, this creates strong positive feedback.

Open standards and monopoly laws can reduce this externality and keep them
from becoming monopoly. Android can call iPhone, and software can be ported
from one platform to another.

------
astazangasta
While this is insipid, the tendency of the Internet to a winner-take-all
system is interesting and needs more commentary. Is it the product of the
massive consolidation of wealth and corporate power? Or is it a feature of the
Internet? Should we avoid it, or mitigate its effects (monopoly power)?

~~~
networkeffect
Network effects are called network effects because they predate the internet.
They are well-studied, and those who from them are adept at using the
political system to erect and maintain barriers to entry for challengers.

------
hackuser
I wonder how well it describes participation in politics.: It rings true: Only
1% really thinking about the world and creating new ideas, 10% thinking
critically about what the 1% say (but letting the 1% define their options),
and 90% following the herd.

------
plank
The examples in the article could just as well be examples of the pareto
principle.... (
[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pareto_principle](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pareto_principle)
)

------
uxhacker
Also Zipf law.
[http://www.hpl.hp.com/research/idl/papers/ranking/adamicglot...](http://www.hpl.hp.com/research/idl/papers/ranking/adamicglottometrics.pdf)

------
rd108
Power laws show up in many systems, as the 80-20 Pareto rule, graph theory's
"scale-free network", even electromagnetism and gravity.

------
Kiro
OT but is anyone else seeing a Zalgo font? Looks really broken.

