An ecosystem community is the web of relationships, shared habits and norms among the people who use or build on a platform, such as developers, creators or customers. It lives in the members’ ties to each other, not in the software that hosts them.
Table of Contents
Key factors
- Clear leadership. Opening access draws contributors only when members know who leads and how decisions are made.
- Protection against misuse. Open communities face free-riding, congestion, spam and rule-breaking, and need moderation to stay useful.
- Easy first steps. Newcomers need small, low-risk ways to contribute, or the community stops renewing itself.
- Recognition. Status, badges and visibility often motivate members more than money, and heavy commercialisation can crowd out voluntary effort.
- Decline is the default. Most online communities lose activity after early growth unless someone keeps them going.
Examples
Stack Overflow. Stack Overflow’s community answers programmers’ questions, with reputation points as the main reward. After AI chatbots arrived in late 2022, activity fell by about a quarter within six months, then kept falling. In May 2024 the company agreed to license its content to OpenAI, angering some members who had written answers for free. Recognition alone struggled to hold contributors once a substitute appeared.
Salesforce. Salesforce’s Trailblazer Community brings together millions of administrators, developers and consultants. Members learn through free Trailhead courses, earn badges and answer each other’s questions in local user groups. They gain skills and status, and Salesforce gains a large supply of trained people who make its products easier to adopt. Recognition does work that payment would otherwise have to.
Frequently asked questions
What is the difference between a community and network effects?
Network effects are the extra value a product gains as more people use it. A community is a set of relationships and shared habits among members, which can exist even when network effects are weak.
How do you tell a real community from an audience?
Ask whether the relationships would survive if the platform disappeared. If members would keep talking and helping each other elsewhere, it is a community. If not, it is an audience for the sponsor.
Should a company pay community members?
Carefully. Payment can reward valuable work, but it can also crowd out the goodwill that keeps unpaid members contributing. Recognition, access and early information often work better.
How do you measure community health?
Track active contributors, how fast questions get answered, how many newcomers become regular members and how many members leave. Total sign-ups say little.