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by robbrown451
3835 days ago
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Donations rarely work. They certainly fail any game theoretic model. A rationally self-interested person would not donate, because in most cases, their donation would not give them as much benefit as the cost. The way you'd measure benefit is the value received from the site, times times the chance that their donation makes the difference between the site existing and not existing. That chance is typically a very small number. Naive articles like this don't bother factoring in what the chance is that your donation will make a difference....in other words they ignore the fact that most people would rather be a freeloader than a sucker. |
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That implies "most" content has negligible value. People that offer quality content seem to have no problem getting people to donate. Just because you haven't seen this doesn't mean it doesn't exist.
> They certainly fail any game theoretic model. > A rationally self-interested person would not donate,
This isn't particularly relevant, as humans are not "rational actors". Even thought economists like to pretend otherwise, "Homo economicus" obviously doesn't actually exist in reality.
> Naive articles like this don't bother factoring in what the chance is that your donation will make a difference
Sure they did. You just don't like the results. Good content will usually be paid for, and junk content will go out of business, just like they should.
> most people would rather be a freeloader than a sucker.
Your politics is showing. Such a limited view is not helpful.