[Totient]

Looks like a system to setup up assurance contracts for funding software. Glad to see more people trying to make this sort of thing work.

What's interesting is that you can actually make pledging a dominant strategy, if you find someone willing to put up enough capital. Roughly speaking, dominant assurance contracts work along the lines of "Everyone who pledges will receive X amount of money if the fundraising fails to hit the appropriate threshold." For anyone who would stand to gain from public good, the outcomes are now "Pledge: either the project will be funded or I will get money vs Don't Pledge: either the project will be funded or I will get no money"

http://mason.gmu.edu/~atabarro/PrivateProvision.pdf

[dllthomas]

That's not quite right - it's "Pledge: either the project is funded and I spend money, or I get money", vs the "Don't Pledge" you give.

It's still interesting, to be sure.

[walterbell]

Any examples of this model being applied in the real world?