A common is any resource used as though it belongs to all, so anyone can used a shared resouce simply because one has the want or the need to. A good example is give by John Hanson on the website
"In 1944, 29 reindeer were moved to St. Matthew Island. The reindeer thrived by "exploiting" (making the best use of) their rich "commons".
The island had no natural predators to keep the reindeer population in check, so the population swelled to 6,000 animals during the next 19 years. Suddenly the commons was depleted and the population crashed until only 42 animals remained alive! The reindeer could have avoided the crash by keeping the population within the carrying capacity of the island, but reindeer politics couldn't manage it, so naturally the population crashed."
In the book An Army of Davids chapter 5 it talks about whether the blog-o-sphere will fall to the tragedy of the commons. This is a very good point since there are many new blogs being published daily one might think that we will run out of space and people interested and it will crash. But the issue is most blogs are there because people want to put their opinion out there for others to see. Since most of these are not money making endeavors how will it crash, the tragedy of the commons suffers when the resouces are used up. I am not sure that peoples opinions will ever be used up and as long as someone has an opinion there will always be a person that either agrees or disagrees with them. With billions of people in the world that have not accessed the computer yet to see what others are thinking or to give there opinion or tell their story, I say blogging is just getting started.
For those ran as a business they will be guided by the invisible hand just as the rest of the economy should be. If they are original and are seen to provide value to the readers then they will thrive. Those who do not will be eliminated.
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