Talk:Free rider problem

Free rider problem vs. Tragedy of the commons

Question: are the Free rider problem and the tragedy of the commons really the same thing?

I understand that free riding occurs with Public goods, where the people who benefit from a good have insufficient incentive to pay money towards its creation, thus resulting in underproduction of the good. Note: it is unusual for rational agents to pay no money towards public goods - especially when the pool of potential consumers is small. Thus, the correct term may be the Easy rider problem.

The tragedy of the commons, OTOH, occurs when some limited (ie, rivalrous) good is open to all (ie, non-excluable). These are often called Common pool resources. In this situation, each individual will take more of the resource than is socially desirable.

The easy rider problem thus applies to information goods, for example, while the tragedy of the commons applies to a fish supply. The phenomena seem related, but not the same.

Pde 05:55 Jan 23, 2003 (UTC)

Your info goods vs fish distinction indeed hints at the distinction. So I'd say the two articles should remain distinct (tho I can't cite any supporting refs right now). The Tragedy of the Commons usually concerns Common goods (ie rivalrous). The free-rider problem can concern all non-excludable goods, whether rivalrous or non-rivalrous.

• The focus of the Tragedy of the Commons is the tragic outcome (ie, the over-use of the common), which can only result if one party's consumption leaves less for others (rivalrous).
• The focus of the Free-rider Problem is the free-rider's under-contribution to the cost of supplying the good. This can apply even if the consumption of one individual doesn't leave less for others (non-rivalrous, e.g. national defence). Of course, under-contribution is as much a concern with rivalrous goods (e.g. contribution to road provision, because roads are congestible or rivalrous).

This is why I think the free rider problem has wider scope and a different focus of concern than the tragedy of the commons, and therefore deserves a separate article (and an explanation fo the difference). --BobBriscoe (talk) 22:35, 12 August 2009 (UTC)

Merge into public good

I've tagged this article to merge into public good, as any discussion of free riders should probably include public goods to be well understood, and vice versa. There's also more on free riders at the public good article than there is here. Scott Ritchie 21:51, 26 November 2005 (UTC)

They should definately not be merged, they are two seperate terms for different things (of course closely related though). Maybe we could consider moving material on the free rider problem from the public good article to this one, I think that would be a much more satisfactory solution. thanks Martin 10:39, 30 December 2005 (UTC)

When do you have free riders and not a public good, i.e. a positive externality? Scott Ritchie 03:04, 31 December 2005 (UTC)

I know what you mean, but the free rider problem is something associated with public goods, they are not the same thing. Martin 09:51, 31 December 2005 (UTC)

Just because they're not the same thing doesn't mean it isn't more useful to the reader to have them in the same article. These two topics seem like things best explained together - that's even what the articles do already. Perhaps more relevant, they're both a bit short at the moment, particularly the free rider problem article. However, you may be right if the public good article gets long enough: Wikipedia:Guide_to_writing_better_articles#Articles_covering_subtopics notes that sub articles should be formed when the parent article gets too long - it's just not there yet. Scott Ritchie 04:26, 2 January 2006 (UTC)

These article should not be merged, imho. Free rider problems deserve a separate entry. It is of course, however, only natural that the article includes a cross-reference to the more general discussion under public good. Popular concepts such as this should have a seperate article, so that users are not forced to look for an easy explanation of the concept in a larger, multi-topical article. I have removed the tag --Thorsen 07:42, 3 January 2006 (UTC)

With trepidation (don't know if I'm following protocol), I added the link to "Public good" under "See also". The discussion there is quite good, and I believe many readers reading this page would benefit by also knowing about the other page. I didn't see a downside to including the link, but if there is one I overlooked, my apologies. -- blueskygreenleaf Wed Jun 24 15:16:43 GMT 2009

I came to this article from the nice 2x2 matrix comparing (Private Good, Common Good, Club Good, Public Good). It immediately struck me that the term 'public good' was being used rather loosely here when it should say free-riding can apply equally to 'public or common goods' (ie to non-excludable goods). Then I discovered this discussion item on whether the free-rider article should be merged into the public goods article! No. On the above basis, the question should surely be "Should the free-riding article be merged into the Excludability article?" Also, the The free rider problem subsection of the Public Good article should be shifted to Excludability.

But, more importantly, the term 'public good' throughout that discussion and this on free-riding should be corrected to 'non-excludable good'. --BobBriscoe (talk) 21:13, 12 August 2009 (UTC)

Problem with example

"The result is that it is possible no system will be installed, an example of market failure."

As written, this is not an example of market failure, as it assumes that the utility of the scheme is $2,500. If several people decline to contribute $100 they may well be acting rationally. In which case this is a market success.

---

I fixed the example to be more mathematically meaningful.

76.173.101.135 (talk) 01:59, 10 August 2009 (UTC)

Lurker vs free riders

Isn't the whole idea of 'free riders' biased?

For example a forum. People who only read posts don't contribute anything to the community. Does that make them parasites? In time a lurker can become a poster, or he can spread idea's from the forum to his own network.

If a community has to make a water tower or an irrigation system then 'free riders' will be able to use it without contributing. However these 'free riders' wil produce agriculture good that will benefit the other members of the community to.

IMHO the free rider problem is only a concern for profit organizations that want to exploit something. For example if i want to build a windmill then i want people to pay for it and to make the most profit i will have to make all the 'freeloaders' pay.

This proves for me that the free rider problem is biased. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 84.194.129.72 (talk) 22:07, 2 November 2008 (UTC)

I have made slight modifications to the example to clarify it against this point.—Preceding unsigned comment added by 91.84.151.241 (talk) 19:51, 22 January 2008 (UTC)

Delete this article

The term "free rider" is established but WP is not a dictionary. We cannot have articles where we discuss every possible use of an English term. I suggest we just delete it. Paul Beardsell (talk) 00:52, 17 January 2009 (UTC)

Non-concur. However, the article as it stands is not satisfactory. The debate above about free-riding vs. public goods shows just how much work needs to be done. It isn't just about how to prevent it -- in some cases, it seems desirable. For example, there is the so-called "supermarket effect" in which everyone benefits from the diligence of a few comparison shoppers (or if not a few, enough). Also, the introductory paragraph is quite biased (what is a "fair share"? I don't even think it's true, since efficient <> fair necessarily. But a lot -- too much -- rides on the definition of "fair".) Ehusman (talk) 01:31, 18 January 2009 (UTC)

But the meaning of "free rider" is obvious and there are numerous ways in which the term can be used metaphorically. That is what is happening here. And we cannot cope with every imaginable figurative manner in which the term can be used because I reckon I could invent one a day, if challenged. This is a common English term which you(?) and others(?) are trying to imbue with some special meaning. No. "Free rider" is not encyclopedic but idiomatic. WP is not a dictionary of English idiom. Article should go. Paul Beardsell (talk) 03:19, 18 January 2009 (UTC)

Also, this article is essentially original research and that is not allowed. So the article must go. Paul Beardsell (talk) 03:19, 18 January 2009 (UTC)

The current article is pretty poor, but if [1] SEP can manage an article on the topic, I am sure Wikipedia can in the end. --86.139.65.151 (talk) 13:49, 20 May 2009 (UTC)

The free-rider as a lay term is indeed idiom, but that doesn't preclude it from also being an extremely well-documented and well-established subject of academic debate -- going back at least to the ancient Greeks. There is a huge amount of literature on the free-rider problem. There may be original research continuing, but the problem per se is definitely not original research. Most of the literature is in economics, and in other disciplines such as climatology, networking, public policy (water, road transport and other utility provisions) that are specific cases of the economics. There is also a literature on the morality of the free-rider in philosphy, going back to Plato's Republic. --BobBriscoe (talk) 21:39, 12 August 2009 (UTC)

Innovation

innovation should be also mentioned. there are countries( and companies) that lead in innovation, and there are free riders. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 93.136.66.37 (talk) 20:03, 1 October 2009 (UTC)

Malibu surfer problem?

So which is it? Is it the "Malibu surfer problem", or is it the "Free rider problem"?

The link name doesn't match the name of the article. The link was from "Malibu...", and the address says "Malibu...", but the article title is "Free...". - KitchM (talk) 00:28, 20 January 2011 (UTC)

Malibu surfer problem is a redirect. It's a variant of the same thing. Fences&Windows 01:04, 20 January 2011 (UTC)

There's a use here. It originally comes from Philippe van Parijs, 'Why Surfers Should Be Fed: The Liberal Case for an Unconditional Basic Income', Philosophy and Public Affairs 20 (1991) 101-131, discussed in Van Parijs, Rawls, and Unconditional Basic Income. Fences&Windows 01:11, 20 January 2011 (UTC)

Funny preconception

A common example of a free rider is someone who chooses to not pay his or her share of taxes, which help pay for public goods that all citizens benefit from, such as: roads, police, water treatment plants, fire services, the MILITARY and food safety inspectors.

I am a bit skeptical as to whether a majority of citizens can be said to benefit from having an armed force that's suppposed to protect them but is just as likely to grab power behind the curtains as i suspect it has in many countries. Military technology has developed insanely fast during the last decades and in a relationship between those wielding tanks and bazookas vs those dabbling in diplomacy and trade, there is one who has an unquestionable upper hand. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 82.148.66.254 (talk) 15:11, 7 March 2011 (UTC)

• Fair point. I only included the military in the new version of that section because the previous version used the military as the only example. I won't object if you delete it.Spylab (talk) 04:44, 8 March 2011 (UTC)

• Eh, I think that's kind of tangential to the matter at hand. The military is a (obviously) a public good, and it's supposed to benefit the population on a whole. Whether it does in a specific instance is irrelevant to the example. I could likely find an example of a water treatment plant that leeched dangerous chemicals into the water, but the reader would still understand that water treatment plants are intended to be for the public good. Justintbassett (talk) 14:18, 20 May 2011 (UTC)

Free-rider problem vs Negative externalities

The is a subtle, but distinct difference between the free rider problem and the idea of negative externalities. In it's current form, the "Politics" section contains the following passage:

"Another example of a free rider is a business that pollutes the natural environment without cleaning it up or paying a penalty. Regulation is a collective action taken by governments to resolve free rider problems such as environmental degradation or excessive resource use."

I am deleting this, as what it is describing are Negative externalities. The free-rider problem does not come into play here unless the pollution is being cleaned up by somebody (be it governmental, individual, or collective). Do we think the difference between the two concepts warrants its own section? Justintbassett (talk) 14:25, 20 May 2011 (UTC)

The free rider problem in fiction

Am I missing something? What does this new section have to do with the free rider issue? JBarta (talk) 13:48, 16 July 2011 (UTC)

The case is quite clear. The free rider problem is defined by the lead of the article as follows:

"In economics, collective bargaining, psychology, and political science, 'free riders' are those who consume a resource without paying for it, or pay less than the full cost of its production."

Cooper`s Seed of Light depicts a perfect example of this. The crew of the Solarian, the spaceship built in the city Europe III, work hard to reach an unusual level of skill and education, but this endeavor is, of course, still far less than the full cost of the production of the interstellar spaceship that they are furnished with and that allows them to avoid dying from acute radiation syndrome, as the only inhabitants of the city. The novel shows the problem in a nutshell, when Newton and the other nine members of the crew start through the cupola of Europe III. The ensuing part of the novel that deals with the journey of the Solarian from star to star is altogether — as Cooper has summarized it in the title Seed of Light — a depiction of how a tiny minority harvests the whole amount of what the population of their home town has worked on, out of a last, instinctive urge to enable its survival as a species. This theme is stressed, when the astronauts walk through the ruins of two towns that have perished in a nuclear war, 60,000 years ago, on a planet of Procyon.

While the subject of euthanasia still seems to touch that of the free rider problem, on an abstract basis, rather clearly, one could, indeed, ask if it is justified to describe also the end of the novel. I have done that because I did not want only to mention the novel, but also to show how the free rider problem is treated, in it. The return of the crew into its own biological past — and, by that, also into the biological past of their fellow-citizens from Europe III — appears to me like an attempt to reconcile all the nearly unbearable disequilibrium that coins the preceding parts of the novel, so that it also still seems to be connected to the subject of the free rider problem.

A German summary of the novel can be found at de:Die Söhne des Alls. --Hans Dunkelberg (talk) 14:28, 16 July 2011 (UTC)

I understand more clearly now, thank you. That said, I think such an inclusion is a bit of a stretch. While it touches on the free rider problem, I believe the new section does more to muddy up the article than to illuminate or clarify the concept. I'm also in agreement with Spylab below. Explaining a concept by way of a fictional novel is probably not very encyclopedic. (Actually, truth be told, I tend to think this whole article should probably just be included as a subsection of another article.) JBarta (talk) 16:56, 16 July 2011 (UTC)

This is an encyclopedic article about a real-life topic. There is no reason to include an example from a fictional novel. That would be setting a bad precident for Wikipedia.Spylab (talk) 16:34, 16 July 2011 (UTC)

I fear You don`t take my work earnest enough. Your formulation "fictional novel" is a tautology; and it is self-evident that this is an encyclopedic article, as all articles on this website are encyclopedic. Can You explain me why You formulate like this? --Hans Dunkelberg (talk) 21:25, 16 July 2011 (UTC)

This is my first time looking at this article, and I have some thoughts on this issue.

• @Hans: You are, of course, correct that the term "fictional novel" is a tautolgy, but the issue of whether an addition to an article is "encylopedic" is not. On en.wiki, the issue of whether or not something that an editor has written is "encyclopedic" has to do with tone and appropriateness for inclusion in an encyclopedia.
• @Jbarta: I disagree that it is non-encyclopedic to illustrate a principle or concept by way of fiction. Indeed, such things can be extremely effective.
• @At Hans: However, while I do endorse fictional illustrations, in order for them to be effective they must be extremly well-known, part of the common culture. The example you've chosen is not so, and because of this, you've been forced to explain at some length the plot to make your point. In doing so, your example has now taken up nearly half the article's length. An effective illustration might be something out of Aesop Fables, that requires merely a brief one (or two) sentence reference to which the majority of readers would immediately attach the rest of the story.
• @Jbarta: I tend to agree with you about this being insufficient to constitute a self-standing article, but then again, that's one of en.wiki's major problems, wouldn't you agree?

Well, those are my thoughts. Happy editing, everyone! HuskyHuskie (talk) 21:52, 17 July 2011 (UTC)

Seed of Light by Cooper has been called the author`s best novel. Cooper is one of the main science fiction authors of the twentieth century. I do not see a problem in the fact that my summary of what makes the novel an example for the free rider problem now takes up nearly half the article's length; Wikipedia has always largely been a construction site. --Hans Dunkelberg (talk) 23:22, 17 July 2011 (UTC)

I'm sure it's a wonderful novel. That's not the point. The point is that, because less than 10% of the readers here, and very possibly less than 1%, are not familiar with the story, the value of the story to illustrate your point evaporates because the reader needs to focus his attention on understanding the story, rather than the point of the example. Because of this, your illustration is no more valuable (and arguably less valuable) than a simple explanation of the principle.

I think what you need to do now is to ascertain how your example strikes other readers. I've given you my opinion, now add that to the opinions you already have, and get some more. Obviously, I could be wrong in the value of the story. But so too could you. It's not for two people who disagree to make the final determination. Seek consensus. HuskyHuskie (talk) 02:33, 18 July 2011 (UTC)

Why has this resurfaced?

Hans, I am confused. With this edit, you appeared to accept the elimination of this section. But now, I see you demanding that another editor "apologize" for taking out the same section you earlier removed. What is going on here?

It appears clear that you have zero to little support for your position. While the number of editors weighing in on this is not huge, of those that have expressed an opinion, the consensus is clearly against the inclusion of that section. I am going to remove it again. If you wish to discuss it further, I'm willing to try to come to a mutual agreement. But do not place it back in until you have obtained consensus for its inclusion. HuskyHuskie (talk) 03:46, 22 July 2011 (UTC)

I don`t think the utterances by Spylab should be considered an opinion, because they cannot be taken earnest altogether. Jbarta has altogether only subscribed to these utterances by Spylab. Also what You have said does not really contain a specific critique of my contribution, but altogether lets the question of its usability unanswered. Moreover, though You, at least, have written earnestly, this is only one opinion contradictory to mine, so that You don`t have a majority. I reinserted my remarks on how Cooper deals with the subject of the article in Seed of Light, because I had again stumbled on the very common section heading In popular culture that I had forgotten in between. --Hans Dunkelberg (talk) 15:59, 22 July 2011 (UTC)

You're stretching, Hans. It's not unreasonable to infer that Spylab and Jbarta object to that section's inclusion, given that Jbarta stated, I believe the new section does more to muddy up the article than to illuminate or clarify the concept, and Spylab stated, There is no reason to include an example from a fictional novel. That would be setting a bad precident for Wikipedia. Perhaps the three of us have not come to a perfect concurrence as to why the section should be excluded, but we nonetheless all agree that its exclusion is preferable. HuskyHuskie (talk) 00:36, 24 July 2011 (UTC)

Spylab has not only polemicized in the sentence of him that You are quoting, here ("fictional novel"), but also inserted the friendly remark "This is an encyclopedic article about a real-life topic" and, moreover, stated, incorrectly, in an edit summary that my contribution was "based on fiction". Jbarta has stated that he was "in agreement" with Spylab, referring to this impertinent talk page contribution. Therefore, one should not take earnest both of them. --Hans Dunkelberg (talk) 10:49, 24 July 2011 (UTC)

Hans, I can't read your mind, therefore, I can't judge whether your comments are the result of a genuine misunderstanding (perhaps based on some language issues) or willful obtuseness. But I do know this: As I read the post by Spylab, I see nothing in the least bit polemical. And you need to keep WP:AGF in mind as you read posts on these talk pages.

In short, your analysis of this matter is way off base. I challenge you to find two experienced editors who are native speakers of English who agree with your description of Spylab's comments as "polemical". Until you can do so, you need to back off, because your comments are approaching unacceptability. HuskyHuskie (talk) 14:15, 24 July 2011 (UTC)

It could be that Spylab just wanted to allude to some problem with the article in the shape that I had given it. However, one would need to be able to read his thoughts to understand what he might be talking of. I know English well enough to judge on this, and anyway am under the impression that You underestimate my command of this language. There is no reason to assume that I didn`t know about the overall encyclopedic aims of Wikipedia. I have contributed with more than five thousand edits to this undertaking and have never been admonished for anything that would have been contrary to these aims.--Hans Dunkelberg (talk) 14:24, 24 July 2011 (UTC)

The point is, we cannot read others minds, and we must therefore be extremely certain when we abandon good faith and accuse others of ill intent. In my opinion, your take on Spylab was not called for, and if you insist on your correctness in this matter, it may very well indicate that you do indeed overestimate your command of English. Spylab's comment in no way implied that you do not understand the encyclopedic aims of Wikipedia. Are you infallible? I doubt you would say that you are. Accordingly, Spylab (and everyone else around here) is perfectly within their rights to make comments such as he made, because as a human being capable of error it is certainly within the bounds of possibility that you could make a poor edit that was not encyclopedic, even if it was just a plain mistake.HuskyHuskie (talk) 14:53, 24 July 2011 (UTC)