4 ms·
I’d classify it as a public goods problem. The difference is rivalry in consumption. You compete over fishing grounds but you don’t compete over use of Babel. I
by greenpresident 5y ago
I’d classify it as a public goods problem. The difference is rivalry in consumption. You compete over fishing grounds but you don’t compete over use of Babel. It makes a difference in user strategy too: with the tragedy of the commons, your personal marginal gain is higher than the individual share of the social cost. This leads to overconsumption. In a public goods problem, you fully benefit without contributing. As a result, you maximize utility by not contributing. There is also an incentive to understate the the utility you derive from the public good in order to avoid being forced to pay, making it hard to estimate the utility generated by the public good. It’s also called the freerider problem.
- guerrilla 5y agoThanks for your analysis but isn't the share of the social cost the fact that Babel will stop updating when these people can't support themselves? It's just delayed in this case, no?
- jsmith99 5y agoWhen something is too obviously a good thing, there is a game of 'chicken' where no one feels the need to contribute because the item is so obviously advantageous they are sure someone else will. At the extreme, this is the opposite of a normal public good, which are characterised by a cost above any individual's marginal utility. Here, there are any number of organisations who probably have marginal utility from Babel above the cost of provision. See the snowdrift dilemma. Prisoner's dilemma or tragedy of commons has a dominant strategy (defect), but chicken does not - your best strategy is to do the opposite to the other.