Allee Effect
You can have users, resources, people - but if you're below critical mass, you're already dead.
You die from isolation while still numbering in the millions.
Below critical density, populations can't find mates, cooperate for predator defense, or maintain social structures. This creates positive feedback toward extinction (small populations decline faster, accelerating toward zero). The passenger pigeon extinction illustrates Allee effects: in 1866, a single flock contained an estimated 3.5 billion birds. Passenger pigeons were social obligates requiring massive flocks for successful breeding. As flocks shrank, populations fell below the critical threshold for breeding - even though millions of individual birds still existed, the species was functionally extinct. From billions to zero in fifty years.
Business Application of Allee Effect
The Allee Trap kills organizations too: network-effects businesses below liquidity thresholds, two-sided marketplaces with too few buyers or sellers, enterprise sales teams spread too thin. You can have users, resources, people - but if you're below critical mass, you're already dead.