I think you're stretching the phrase "tragedy of the commons" too thin. The lesson in that story is that property ownership actually nets more value out of the

I think you're stretching the phrase "tragedy of the commons" too thin. The lesson in that story is that property ownership actually nets more value out of the property than 'nobody' owning it, because without a responsible steward then the populous strip mines it until it becomes useless to everyone. Of course there's the danger of the the owner doing the same if they are too short-sighted, which I think we might be seeing in many people's attitudes and businesses today. You're using it to lament that people don't just sacrifice themselves for the greater good, which bears little resemblance to the original meaning. It also bears little resemblance to reality; you may observe that the most productive complex systems are the ones where the benefit to the individual is made to align with the benefit to the group, but your strategy is for the individual to shaft themselves so that some nameless "everybody else" gets the benefit. Reality check, that's never going to work. Instead aim for a system where the individual's interests are aligned with the groups interests. It's not that I don't see the value in maximizing the generation of new ideas, but for this to work everybody has to be on board for themselves where being onboard for yourself is good for the system. If there's any modern corollary to "tragedy of the commons" it's open source software in general. People and companies use it for great gain but scarcely contribute back, strip mine its maintainers of value until they burn out and the project dies.