In the inverse commons, the opposite results of the law of the commons effect are witnessed. That is, individuals contributing knowledge and content for the good of the community rather than extracting resources for their own personal gain. Examples of this are free and open source software and Wikipedia. This phenomenon is linked to "viral" effects and increases in prominence as individuals contribute altruistically and for social gain.
The phenomenon is also known as "comedy of the commons"[1] and "the cornucopia of the commons."[2]
It is one of four outcomes:
| Property rights | Common ownership or lack of property rights | |
|---|---|---|
| Bad outcome/tragedy | Tragedy of the anticommons | Tragedy of the commons |
| Good outcome/cornucopia/comedy* (*in the sense of "drama with a happy ending") |
normal case | Inverse commons |
The prevalent outcome depends on the details of the situation. The inverse commons outcome is likely when the cost of the contribution is much less than its value over time. Information has this property. For example, it costs very little for a Wikipedia contributor to enter knowledge from their experience into Wikipedia's servers, and very little for Wikipedia to serve that information over and over again to readers, generating great value over time. Unlike the pasture of a physical commons, information isn't degraded much by use. Thus the value of Wikipedia increases over time, attracting more readers some of whom become contributors, forming a virtuous cycle.[3][4][5]