Ecology of Scale

I came across this phrase somewhere in the vastness of the internet, and really like it.

It’s used to describe vibrant communities, the likes of which have been springing up all over the internet since its inception.

Things which have an ecology of scale:

• Amazon rain forest
• OpenIDEO
• iPhone ecosystem

It’s not the same as an economy of scale, which is typically taken to mean something getting cheaper with volume. Instead it describes the richness which can come with scale, as the community grows in number and the outputs of that community become more interesting and varied.