3 ms·

I have recently learned a technical term for the scenario you're describing: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nash_equilibrium https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nash_e

I have recently learned a technical term for the scenario you're describing: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nash_equilibrium https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nash_equilibrium "Informally, a strategy profile is a Nash equilibrium if no player can do better by unilaterally changing his or her strategy. To see what this means, imagine that each player is told the strategies of the others. Suppose then that each player asks themselves: 'Knowing the strategies of the other players, and treating the strategies of the other players as set in stone, can I benefit by changing my strategy?' If any player could answer "Yes", then that set of strategies is not a Nash equilibrium. But if every player prefers not to switch (or is indifferent between switching and not) then the strategy profile is a Nash equilibrium. Thus, each strategy in a Nash equilibrium is a best response to all other strategies in that equilibrium. The Nash equilibrium may sometimes appear non-rational in a third-person perspective. This is because a Nash equilibrium is not necessarily Pareto optimal."

_emacsomancer_ 8y ago
Thanks for this. I've been pondering whether the word-processing/QuickBooks strategy is a Nash equilibrium (at least from my admittedly shallow understanding of the term). So lots of people produce documents using Word or LibreOffice - so that's their strategy. Some group of people produce documents using LaTeX. I'm not sure that I see how this is a Nash equilibrium. The LaTeX people in some situations might gain an advantage by switching to the Word strategy for better interoperability. The Word people (in almost all situations) could gain an advantage by switching to the LaTeX strategy for the sake of using a sane paradigm. Rather the word-processing situation (and likely the QuickBooks situation, though I know much less about accounting software) seems to be something like maximizing the lowering of perceived entry cost (in terms of learning to use the software) over all other factors (with resulting increasing in complexity for more advanced functions and poor flexibility).

_emacsomancer_ 8y ago

Thanks for this. I've been pondering whether the word-processing/QuickBooks strategy is a Nash equilibrium (at least from my admittedly shallow understanding of the term). So lots of people produce documents using Word or LibreOffice - so that's their strategy. Some group of people produce documents using LaTeX. I'm not sure that I see how this is a Nash equilibrium. The LaTeX people in some situations might gain an advantage by switching to the Word strategy for better interoperability. The Word people (in almost all situations) could gain an advantage by switching to the LaTeX strategy for the sake of using a sane paradigm. Rather the word-processing situation (and likely the QuickBooks situation, though I know much less about accounting software) seems to be something like maximizing the lowering of perceived entry cost (in terms of learning to use the software) over all other factors (with resulting increasing in complexity for more advanced functions and poor flexibility).