3/01/2008

Cornucopia of the Commons

I have always heard of the tragedy of the commons, where people act in their own self-interests with public resources, such as air and water. This article, however, introduces a new concept, the cornucopia of the commons. Many great things were mentioned, such as Wikipedia, shareware, and blog writers, that contribute and help the public, at no cost (currency-wise, not counting for time). It is so cool how people will come together to create information and programs that will help complete strangers for no pay. They get a satisfaction of expressing themselves and a feeling of charity, but other than that, nothing. It's nice to know that there's still a lot of good people out there.

2 comments:

Gavin said...

I think that supply exceeds demand for many of the concepts in the article. Eventually it will balance out when demand catches up and then exceeds supply. Companies will begin charging for free services or else the services will be subsidized by advertising dollars.

Dr. Tufte said...

I am very perplexed by all of this. It shouldn't work, but it does. Why?

My uncertainty about how this works hasn't stopped me from exploiting it. This blog is part of it too: we get hits from all over the world, and comments on many old posts that I have to filter through.