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> so I say take as much as you can. Commons would be if it’s owned by nobody This isn’t what “commons” means in the term ‘tragedy of the commons’, and the obvi

by dahart 10mo ago

> so I say take as much as you can. Commons would be if it’s owned by nobody This isn’t what “commons” means in the term ‘tragedy of the commons’, and the obvious end result of your suggestion to take as much as you can is to cause the loss of access. Anything that is free to use is a commons, regardless of ownership, and when some people use too much, everyone loses access. Finite digital resources like bandwidth and database sizes within companies are even listed as examples in the Wikipedia article on Tragedy of the Commons. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tragedy_of_the_commons https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tragedy_of_the_commons

nkmnz 10mo ago
No, the word and its meaning both point to the fact that there’s no exclusive ownership of a commons. This is importantl, since ownership is associated with bearing the cost of usage (i.e., deprecation) which would lead an owner to avoid the tragedy of the commons. Ownership is regularly the solution to the tragedy (socialism didn’t work). The behavior that you warn against is that of a free rider that make use of a positive externality of GitHub’s offering.
- dahart 10mo ago
  That is one meaning of “commons”, but not all of them, and you might be mistaking which one the phrase ‘tragedy of the commons’ is using. “Commons can also be defined as a social practice of governing a resource not by state or market but by a community of users that self-governs the resource through institutions that it creates.” https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Commons https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Commons The actual mechanism by which ownership resolves tragedy of the commons scenarios is by making the resource non-free, by either charging, regulating, or limiting access. The effect still occurs when something is owned but free, and its name is still ‘tragedy of the commons’, even when the resource in question is owned by private interests.
  - bawolff 10mo ago
    How does that differ from what the person you are arguing against is saying?
    - dahart 10mo ago
      Ownership, I guess. The 2 parent comments are claiming that “tragedy of the commons” doesn’t apply to privately owned things. I’m suggesting that it does. Edit: oh, I do see what you mean, and yes I misunderstood the quote I pulled from WP - it’s talking about non-ownership. I could pick a better example, but I think that’s distracting from the fact that ‘tragedy of the commons’ is a term that today doesn’t depend on the definition of the word ‘commons’. It’s my mistake to have gotten into any debate about what “commons” means, I’m only saying today’s usage and meaning of the phrase doesn’t depend on that definition, it’s a broader economic concept.
      - nkmnz 10mo ago
        No, it’s not.
        dahart 10mo ago
        What’s not what? Care to back up your argument with any links? I already pointed out that examples in the WP article for ‘Tragedy of the Commons’ use private property. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tragedy_of_the_commons#Digital_commons https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tragedy_of_the_commons#Digital... Are you contradicting the Wikipedia article? Why, and on what basis?
        bawolff 10mo ago
        I'm not sure i agree that the Wikipedia article supports your position. Certainly private property is involved in tragedy of the commons. In the classic shared cattle ranching example, the individual cattle are private property, only the field is held in common. I generally think that tragedy of the commons requires the commons, to, well, be held in common. If someone owns the thing that is the commons, its not a commons but just a bad product. (With of course some nit picking about how things can be de jure private property while being defacto common property) In the microsoft example, windows becoming shitty software is not a tragedy of the commons, its just MS making a business decision because windows is not a commons. On the other hand, computing in general becoming shitty, because each individual app does attention grabbing dark patterns, as it helps the induvidual apps bottom line while hurting the ecosystem as a whole, would be a tragedy of the commons, as user attention is something all apps hold in common and none of them own.

by dahart 10mo ago

nkmnz 10mo ago

No, the word and its meaning both point to the fact that there’s no exclusive ownership of a commons. This is importantl, since ownership is associated with bearing the cost of usage (i.e., deprecation) which would lead an owner to avoid the tragedy of the commons. Ownership is regularly the solution to the tragedy (socialism didn’t work). The behavior that you warn against is that of a free rider that make use of a positive externality of GitHub’s offering.

dahart 10mo ago
That is one meaning of “commons”, but not all of them, and you might be mistaking which one the phrase ‘tragedy of the commons’ is using. “Commons can also be defined as a social practice of governing a resource not by state or market but by a community of users that self-governs the resource through institutions that it creates.” https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Commons https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Commons The actual mechanism by which ownership resolves tragedy of the commons scenarios is by making the resource non-free, by either charging, regulating, or limiting access. The effect still occurs when something is owned but free, and its name is still ‘tragedy of the commons’, even when the resource in question is owned by private interests.
- bawolff 10mo ago
  How does that differ from what the person you are arguing against is saying?
  - dahart 10mo ago
    Ownership, I guess. The 2 parent comments are claiming that “tragedy of the commons” doesn’t apply to privately owned things. I’m suggesting that it does. Edit: oh, I do see what you mean, and yes I misunderstood the quote I pulled from WP - it’s talking about non-ownership. I could pick a better example, but I think that’s distracting from the fact that ‘tragedy of the commons’ is a term that today doesn’t depend on the definition of the word ‘commons’. It’s my mistake to have gotten into any debate about what “commons” means, I’m only saying today’s usage and meaning of the phrase doesn’t depend on that definition, it’s a broader economic concept.
    - nkmnz 10mo ago
      No, it’s not.
      - dahart 10mo ago
        What’s not what? Care to back up your argument with any links? I already pointed out that examples in the WP article for ‘Tragedy of the Commons’ use private property. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tragedy_of_the_commons#Digital_commons https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tragedy_of_the_commons#Digital... Are you contradicting the Wikipedia article? Why, and on what basis?
        bawolff 10mo ago
        I'm not sure i agree that the Wikipedia article supports your position. Certainly private property is involved in tragedy of the commons. In the classic shared cattle ranching example, the individual cattle are private property, only the field is held in common. I generally think that tragedy of the commons requires the commons, to, well, be held in common. If someone owns the thing that is the commons, its not a commons but just a bad product. (With of course some nit picking about how things can be de jure private property while being defacto common property) In the microsoft example, windows becoming shitty software is not a tragedy of the commons, its just MS making a business decision because windows is not a commons. On the other hand, computing in general becoming shitty, because each individual app does attention grabbing dark patterns, as it helps the induvidual apps bottom line while hurting the ecosystem as a whole, would be a tragedy of the commons, as user attention is something all apps hold in common and none of them own.