If They Know Many Others Are Already Doing It People Become Less Likely To Contribute To A Virtual Public Good Like Wikipedia Or Waze
The Research Brief is a short take about interesting academic work.
The big idea
While people tend to contribute more to a virtual public good if they see others doing the same, this effect reverses if they become aware too many people are participating, according to research that I conducted over the summer. Public goods are things that many people share. They can be physical, such as highways, clean air and blood banks, or virtual, like a free online encyclopedia or mobile traffic app.
Combining methods from geography, urban planning and big-data analysis, my co-authors and I studied millions of postings by users of a mobile navigation app called Waze, in which users voluntarily post traffic-related updates and road conditions in real time. All users of the app benefit as more of them f...