The standard refutation of Metcalfe's law, by Andrew Odlyzko and Benjamin Tilly, is hosted at <a href="http://www.dtc.umn.edu/~odlyzko/doc/metcalfe.pdf" rel="nofollow">http://www.dtc.umn.edu/~odlyzko/doc/metcalfe.pdf</a><p>On page nine they conclude:<p>Metcalfe's Law and Reed's Law both significantly overstate the value of a communication network. In their place we propose another rough rule, that the value of a network of size n grows like n log n. This rule, while not meant to be exact, does appear to be consistent with the historical behaviour of networks with regard to interconnection, and it captures the advantage that general connectivity offers over broadcast networks that deliver content. It also helps explain the failure of the dot-com and telecom ventures, since it implies network effects are not as strong as had been hoped for.