[thaumaturgy]

I don't know what your personal circumstances are, but your tone here sounds like you need to take some time away from the internet, for your own mental health.

It's a huge oversimplification to describe people in just those terms. People are complicated and so are their motivations, and it's hard to tell in advance which new things will be successful or not.

For example, I once worked for a guy who hadn't heard of open source and, when I described the concept to him, couldn't wrap his brain around why so many people would take the time to write and maintain a bunch of software and then just give it away. This is not the work product of "evil and/or lazy" people.

[groby_b]

I don't think it's a mental health issue for me that the tragedy of the commons extends to the Internet. This is not about "not knowing", this is about prioritizing self interest and actively abusing the system.

We know these two things happen, consistently. We have failed to account for them in much of the foundations of the Internet - it's the assumption of benevolent cooperation. Which was great for ARPAnet, but simply doesn't work in the wild. We have 20+ years of proof.

We cannot continue to put our heads in the sand and ignore that, because for better or worse, the Internet has become a major force shaping society.

The idea that naivete translates into mental health is certainly fascinating, but I believe the colloquial translation for that is "ignorance is bliss".

[panic]

The tragedy of the commons depends a lot on the nature of the commons. People can and do work together to manage common resources. You can check out the work of Elinor Ostrom for some examples.