Great points, something I wrestled with as well. In my eyes, network effects are immediate, whereas economies of scale are delayed. A network effect instantly increases the strength of the network and benefits all the nodes. Whereas, economies of scale do not have this immediate effect and might result in consumer benefits once a volume threshold is met. But one new person buying a Unilever product has 0 effect on the network itself. The reason the two get conflated is yes they both lead to defensibility and yes they both lead to flywheels, but the underlying mechanism is different. Just my 2 cents anyway, keen to hear what you think.