Braess' paradox, where increases in road capacity can actually reduce traffic capacity, relies on an important assumption: that people are acting rationally wit

Braess' paradox, where increases in road capacity can actually reduce traffic capacity, relies on an important assumption: that people are acting rationally with perfect information. In other words, it is that individually optimal behavior causes the breakdown for the system as a whole. Funnily enough, the blame on Waze might be on point: we might actually be experiencing Braess' paradox more often now, not due to building roads, but because people are more likely to optimize their routes due to traffic-aware GPS systems. And in that respect, Waze could be causing network-wide congestion while simultaneously providing the best possible service for its users. Of course if that were true, it would also mean that you could also blame the road network and that Waze is merely using it as it was designed. Then we get into the the philosophical argument about the drunk jaywalker being hit by a speeding car: You can blame either party for 100% of the blame, 0% of the blame, or arbitrarily apportion blame between the two parties in any way you want, and no matter what, your judgment will be a pure reflection of your biases.