All that matters is whether the absolute number of contributors is adequate. Because the marginal cost of copying and distributing content is very close to zero, institutions can get along just fine with arbitrarily high “free riding” rates. On Wikipedia-and a lot of other online content-creation efforts-the ratio of contributors to users just doesn’t matter. Neither would an airline in which only one percent of the customers paid for their tickets. A church in which only, say, one percent of members contributed financially wouldn’t last long. The concept of “free riding” emphasizes the fact that traditional offline institutions expect and require reciprocation from the majority of their members for their continued existence. With a traditional meatspace institution like a church, business or intramural sports league, it’s essential that most participants “give back” in order for the collective effort to succeed. The second problem with the “free riding” frame is that it fails to appreciate that the sheer scale of the Internet changes the nature of collective action problems. We don’t need to “solve” the free rider problem because there are more than enough people out there for whom the act of contributing is its own reward. Participating in Wikipedia is a net positive experience for both readers and editors. ![]() To the contrary, it’s understood that the vast majority of musicians, poets, and athletes find these activities intrinsically enjoyable, and they’re grateful to have an audience “free ride” off of their effort. No one loses sleep over the fact that people “free ride” off of watching company softball games, community orchestras, or amateur poetry readings. Moreover, the real world abounds in counterexamples. ![]() This is obviously true for some categories of content-no one has yet figured out how to peer-produce Hollywood-quality motion pictures, for example-but it’s far from universal. The first assumption is that the production of content is a net cost that must either be borne by the producer or compensated by consumers. The idea of “free riding” is based on a couple of key 20th-century assumptions that just don’t apply to the online world. Unfortunately, the “free riding” frame is one of the most common ways people discuss the economics of online content creation, and I think it has been an obstacle to clear thinking. users-is one of the most appealing things about being a Wikipedia editor. People like to contribute to an encyclopedia with a large readership indeed, the enormous number of “free-riders”-a.k.a. The overwhelming majority of Wikipedia users “free ride,” and far from being a drag on Wikipedia’s growth, this large audience acts as a powerful motivator for continued contribution to the site. In fact, talking about “free riding” as a problem the Wikipedia community needs to solve doesn’t make any sense. When Roberts says that Wikipedia solves “some of” the free-rider problem, he seems to be conceding that there’s some kind of “free rider problem” that needs to be overcome. ![]() He’s right, but I would make a stronger point: the very notion of a “free-rider problem” is nonsensical when we’re talking about a project like Wikipedia. They misunderstood the pure pleasure that overcomes some of that free-rider problem. They’d love to read Wikipedia if it existed, but no one’s going to create it because there’s a free-riding problem.” And those folks were wrong. They’d say “well it can’t work, you see, because you get so little glory from this. One of the things that fascinates me about is that I think if you’d asked an economist in 1950, 1960, 1970, 1980, 1990, even 2000: “could Wikipedia work,” most of them would say no. Roberts said about 50 minutes into the podcast: The host, Russ Roberts, covered some of the same ground, but also explored some different topics, so it was an enjoyable listen. I interviewed Shirky when his book came out back in April. This week, one of my favorite podcasts, EconTalk, features one of my favorite Internet visionaries, Clay Shirky.
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