The Commons can be understood as any shared resource that is open for any individual to use. 

 

The resource must also not be privatized or regulated by a single entity in any way. Land and livestock can be thought of as traditional commons. 

 

A real-life example of the traditional commons could be found in the lobster fishery of Maine, New England, which kicked off around the early 20th century. There was always a sense of community throughout the industry, as fishing lobster was considered heritage. There are even festivals themed around fishing lobster, and the rocky floors of Maine water ensured that there was always an abundance of lobsters present. 

 

The lobstermen were not regulated or restricted in any way by the state; instead, they collectively agreed upon trap limits and other sets of rules in order to keep the lobster population high enough for everyone in the local industry to thrive. In recent times, the state of Maine has supported the lobster fishery while being careful not to regulate it, and it currently brings around $300 million into the state yearly. They have created 35,000 jobs, including truck drivers and boat operators, out of the approximately 5,000 businesses operating there. As a result, Maine is the highest lobster-producing state in the country. 

 

The lobster fishery in Maine is considered a successful commons, where the nature of its usage survives and thrives in a collective, unregulated environment. 

 

But the traditional commons can also fail. An example of this is overpopulation; when there is no official regulation on reproduction and a finite amount of resources, the environment can no longer provide for the people. Overpopulation can lead to other issues, such as air pollution and traffic problems, and it can even instigate violent conflicts and wars over resources, which is often the case in impoverished nations. Other examples of failed commons can be seen in overfishing and deforestation.

 

There is also the digital commons, which includes informational resources, open-source technology, and media in the public domain. This is a more recent phenomenon, having taken place largely in the 21st century. An example of the digital commons is the internet. Here, online resources are usually shared by a community, where each individual is welcome to use, and in some cases, improve upon them. 

 

Wikipedia is an example of a knowledge commons on the internet. There exists a Wikimedia Commons on the website, which is a collection of free-to-use images, video, and graphics that any user is welcome to contribute to. There are sometimes instances of vandalism and attempts by political groups to bias some Wikipedia articles, but this is often avoided by allowing certain reputed authors control over the edits made by the community.

 

The Commons have long been criticized, especially for their perceived ineffectiveness compared to capitalist-centred or privatized systems. Most of these criticisms have dated back to the nineteenth century and often have only the traditional commons in mind. 

 

We seek to compare the traditional commons with the modern digital commons, specifically the internet, and answer the following question: do the internet’s unique services, structures, and communities entirely exclude it from traditional criticisms of the commons? In other words, is the internet as a commons so different from the traditional commons in nature, that the foundational criticisms against the traditional commons are inapplicable? 

 

To answer this question, Garret Hardin’s arguments in “The Tragedy of The Commons” will be used as the primary source of criticism. Hardin, who did most of his work in the pre-internet era, founded most of the crucial criticisms against the traditional commons; most of his arguments are still being used today, against the modern commons. 

 

Hardin, in a 1968 article named “The Tragedy of The Commons,” questions the motivations and altruism of commons users. He refers to Aristotle’s argument that humans naturally have their self-interests in mind and priority, and so they will exploit the shared resource with not enough care to its longevity; the resource will inevitably deteriorate through excessive use, and be inaccessible to no one. In other words, the lack of privatization and regulation in the commons will lead it to its end.

 

There are two main aspects of each category of the commons that will be investigated to answer the research question. The first is the underlying psychologies of the individuals accessing each commons. Hardin’s argument is largely psychologically based – that the users of the commons are inherently and unavoidably self-serving. 

 

The subquestion for this aspect is the following: do the underlying psychologies of internet communities and users of the traditional commons differ in a way that renders Hardin’s fundamental psychological argument irrelevant? 

 

The second aspect relates to the structure and nature of each category of commons. Hardin argued that under the burden of excessive use, the traditional commons will eventually deteriorate, because its resources are finite and can’t handle not being regulated. The subquestion of this aspect is the following: does the unique technical makeup of the internet differ from the classical model of the traditional commons used by Hardin?

 

Let’s investigate Hardin’s psychological argument first. 

 

Once again, it’s based on an argument made by the ancient Greek philosopher Aristotle, who said the commons are the least taken care of because humans have a higher regard for their own interest over other people’s. So as long as humans prioritize their own interests over those of a group, the shared resource in question will deteriorate.

 

While the internet and other digital commons emerged long after the publication of Hardin’s the "Tragedy of the Commons," both worlds were heavily embedded in a global capitalist framework. 

 

Gian Maria Greco and Luciano Floridi, researchers for Ethics and Information Technology, determined that as long as the shared resource exists in a capitalist environment, criticisms relating to the self-serving nature of users remain relevant. 

 

And in the internet era, we live in an environment that is more capitalistic than ever. 

 

As Michael Hardt and Antonio Negri describe in their book titled "Empire," an emergent form of imperialism is now beginning to manifest in corporations, characterized by their ability to reconstruct labour and production to their benefit. This imperialism is named the Empire, a global order linked to modern understandings of identity, race, and communication. 

 

As Hardt and Negri describe, more and more resources are becoming privatized and commercialized, especially the data of people who use the internet. 

 

The individuals who Hardin described as wanting to exploit the traditional commons have now come together as corporations in the modern day. The desire to privatize resources, and make them exclusive and tradable, is stronger than ever. Social media financially relies almost exclusively on being able to sell the data of its users to third parties. Facebook, for example, was under scrutiny in 2018 after a consulting firm named Cambridge Analytica collected personal data on over 87 million Facebook users, through a question-and-answer app. This was facilitated by Facebook, who did in fact patent this kind of program years before. 

 

The same is true for nearly every free service that can be found on internet; sustaining the service through a collective effort is no longer feasible when there is the need to keep a domain purchased; there must be a source of revenue in order to remain operable. And in a capitalistic environment, contributors must be employees and paid with money in order to motivate work. A commons cannot thrive under these conditions.

 

As a result, Hardin’s psychological argument is provided with more evidence than ever. 

 

The answer to the first question is therefore – no, the underlying psychology of mainstream internet communities are very similar to that described in Hardin’s criticisms. In fact, in a capitalist and growingly privatized system, the nature of Hardin’s psychological argument is compounded by several other modern factors.

 

Now to the second inquiry: Hardin argues that resources that are typically held in common will deteriorate when used excessively, which is due to the assumed finite nature of the resource. The structural model of the internet and the commons that Hardin uses – specifically, the differences between them – are critical to this analysis. The internet, as well as most other digital commons, is unique in its structure and technical makeup and very different from those of the traditional commons.

 

The traditional commons, such as fisheries, land, and livestock, are considered subtractable resources; that is, using them directly causes a decrease in their abundance. 

 

On the other hand, the internet is often described as a non-subtractable system, which means the use of this commons does not decrease its functionality or make it less available for other users. 

 

There are many instances where attracting many users to use a service is beneficial for the overall system; downloading a program makes the program more widespread and adaptable. Use of the internet certainly does not necessarily cause a decrease or deficiency in its functionality. In fact, Darren Hardy, who is a researcher at the University of California, determined that excessive use of the internet is often beneficial to the aforementioned online corporations, who try to attract as many users as possible to their platforms. 

 

So the evolutionary timeline of the internet differs from those of the traditional commons, which makes a crucial portion of Hardin’s argument against the commons inapplicable in this modern sense. The answer to the second question – does the unique technical makeup of the internet differ from the classical model of the traditional commons used by Hardin – is an emphatic “yes.” 

 

Unlike fisheries, land, and livestock, the internet does not deteriorate under excessive use as Hardin’s models would suggest. 

 

To return to the initial question – do the internet’s unique services, structures, and communities entirely exclude it from traditional criticisms of the commons – we arrive at an answer that is not a definitive yes or no. While Hardin’s argument that the mindset of users of the commons are inherently self-serving does extend to the modern commons of the internet – since we still live in a capitalist environment and privatization is more present than ever online – it cannot be said that the ensuing deteriorative effect of the commons extends to the internet. The internet’s structure and technical makeup is markedly different from those of the traditional commons, so much so that perceived “excessive use” may in fact be beneficial to many parts of the internet. The criticisms of the users of the traditional commons apply to the internet, but the secondary criticism of the traditional commons’ structure does not.