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Why do most Americans turn to Christianity when they seek spiritual fulfillment and not others, after their pursuit of money, success, and power fail them?


Christianity in America benefits from what is known as the "network effect." All established/incumbent religions benefit from this network effect. Innovation occurs within these religions but people flocking to a new religion or "framework of meaning" is rare.

A network effect is the effect that one user of a good or service has on the value of that product to other people. When network effect is present, the value of a product or service increases as more people use it.

The classic example is the telephone. The more people own telephones, the more valuable the telephone is to each owner. This creates a positive externality because a user may purchase their phone without intending to create value for other users, but does so in any case. Online social networks work in the same way, with sites like MySpace and Facebook being more useful the more users join.

The expression "network effect" is applied most commonly to positive network externalities as in the case of the telephone. Negative network externalities can also occur, where more users make a product less valuable, but are more commonly referred to as "congestion" (as in traffic congestion or network congestion). Over time, positive network effects can create a bandwagon effect as the network becomes more valuable and more people join, in a positive feedback loop.