http://www.btobonline.com/article/20131104/BLOGS/131109997/three-ways-to-beat-the-tragedy-of-the-digital-commons
In this article, the author states that a tragedy of the 'digital' commons exist and will be/is a problem in modern society and proposes three solutions.
The article states that because the internet is free and signing up for many social media websites is also free, the tragedy of the commons becomes a real problem. While the tragedy of the commons is traditionally associated with food (e.g fish) or land (e.g grazing land), this article shows how the tragedy of the commons can easily apply to the digital world. He defines tragedy of the commons as the "depletion of a shared resource by individuals, despite their understanding that depleting the common resource is contrary to the group's long-term best interests". This can apply to the digital world because as stated in the article, signing up for social media networks and creating profiles according to one's self interest can create a certain kind of 'noise pollution'. This 'noise pollution' comes from too many people on the social media websites creating too much 'noise' and blocking out the constructive voices from being heard clearly. Also, when people only want to visit the website and use it's social media utilities once and once only (defined as "one-stop-shop" in the article), it creates an extremely crowded and 'noisy' website that may start to fail to fulfill its purpose as a website.
The author suggests three possible solutions to the problem. Cooperative Collaboration, creating incentives, and restricting access. Cooperative collaboration involves thinking up a single effective strategy that would "deliver high-value experiences for customers and member". This would solve some of the problems created by the tragedy of the commons because this means that many websites will start to collaborate with each other to create user friendly websites and can be confident that their voice will be heard and not overshadowed by useless 'junk'. Creating incentives involves developing a system that rewards active members. This way, websites are breeding people that are active and not 'one-stop-shop'ers. The last solution, restricting access. By restricting access to the 'one-stop-shop'ers, it creates a website that isn't crowed by empty profiles.
This situation is very similar to problem arising from tragedy of the commons regarding grazing land. Grazing land was sought after because of the rising demand of beef. People took so much that the grazing land could not sustain itself. Therefore, cooperative collaboration (designating plots of land to people), creating incentives (creating incentives to keep grazing land sustainable) and restricting access (cows cannot graze in a certain area during a certain time period) solves the problem to some extent.
In this article, the author states that a tragedy of the 'digital' commons exist and will be/is a problem in modern society and proposes three solutions.
The article states that because the internet is free and signing up for many social media websites is also free, the tragedy of the commons becomes a real problem. While the tragedy of the commons is traditionally associated with food (e.g fish) or land (e.g grazing land), this article shows how the tragedy of the commons can easily apply to the digital world. He defines tragedy of the commons as the "depletion of a shared resource by individuals, despite their understanding that depleting the common resource is contrary to the group's long-term best interests". This can apply to the digital world because as stated in the article, signing up for social media networks and creating profiles according to one's self interest can create a certain kind of 'noise pollution'. This 'noise pollution' comes from too many people on the social media websites creating too much 'noise' and blocking out the constructive voices from being heard clearly. Also, when people only want to visit the website and use it's social media utilities once and once only (defined as "one-stop-shop" in the article), it creates an extremely crowded and 'noisy' website that may start to fail to fulfill its purpose as a website.
The author suggests three possible solutions to the problem. Cooperative Collaboration, creating incentives, and restricting access. Cooperative collaboration involves thinking up a single effective strategy that would "deliver high-value experiences for customers and member". This would solve some of the problems created by the tragedy of the commons because this means that many websites will start to collaborate with each other to create user friendly websites and can be confident that their voice will be heard and not overshadowed by useless 'junk'. Creating incentives involves developing a system that rewards active members. This way, websites are breeding people that are active and not 'one-stop-shop'ers. The last solution, restricting access. By restricting access to the 'one-stop-shop'ers, it creates a website that isn't crowed by empty profiles.
This situation is very similar to problem arising from tragedy of the commons regarding grazing land. Grazing land was sought after because of the rising demand of beef. People took so much that the grazing land could not sustain itself. Therefore, cooperative collaboration (designating plots of land to people), creating incentives (creating incentives to keep grazing land sustainable) and restricting access (cows cannot graze in a certain area during a certain time period) solves the problem to some extent.