Scanning through this I couldn't find much on the ratio of askers to askees (what the paper seems to call Receivers and Senders, respectively). That seems like

Scanning through this I couldn't find much on the ratio of askers to askees (what the paper seems to call Receivers and Senders, respectively). That seems like a major factor - there's the classic example of the IT person who's constantly being asked to help with relatively basic tasks. If that's their defined job, that's not a problem - but if they have other responsibilities that are not being met due to constant requests for assistance, it becomes a problem. A similar example is found in areas with a high concentration of homeless people - i.e. if there is just one homeless person in a neighborhood, people might go out of their way to be helpful, or if they were asking for money people might be willing to give them a few dollars - but if there are 100 homeless people in a neighborhood, then treating them all equally would mean shelling out several hundred dollars, a more significant burden. Once a problem becomes organizational-scale or societal-scale, then this focus on individual relationships no longer makes much sense. In the former case, hiring a person (or team) whose sole job is to provide technical assitance is the solution; in the latter, some kind of social safety net aimed at keeping people off the street is needed.