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.

Second order free rider problem