“Anti-rival good” is a

neologism A neologism Greek νέο- ''néo''(="new") and λόγος /''lógos'' meaning "speech, utterance"] is a relatively recent or isolated term, word, or phrase that may be in the process of entering common use, but that has not been fully accepted int ...

suggested by Steven Weber (professor), Steven Weber. According to his definition, it is the opposite of a

rival good In economics, a good is said to be rivalrous or a rival if its consumption by one consumer prevents simultaneous consumption by other consumers, or if consumption by one party reduces the ability of another party to consume it. A good is conside ...

. The more people share an anti-rival good, the more utility each person receives. Examples include

software Software is a set of computer programs and associated documentation and data. This is in contrast to hardware, from which the system is built and which actually performs the work. At the lowest programming level, executable code consists ...

and other information goods created through the process of

commons-based peer production Commons-based peer production (CBPP) is a term coined by Harvard Law School professor Yochai Benkler. It describes a model of socio-economic production in which large numbers of people work cooperatively; usually over the Internet. Commons-based p ...

. An anti-rival good meets the test of a public good because it is non-excludable (freely available to all) and non-rival (consumption by one person does not reduce the amount available for others). However, it has the additional quality of being created by private individuals for common benefit without being motivated by pure

altruism Altruism is the principle and moral practice of concern for the welfare and/or happiness of other human beings or animals, resulting in a quality of life both material and spiritual. It is a traditional virtue in many cultures and a core as ...

, because the individual contributor also receives benefits from the contributions of others.

Free open-source software

Lawrence Lessig Lester Lawrence Lessig III (born June 3, 1961) is an American academic, attorney, and political activist. He is the Roy L. Furman Professor of Law at Harvard Law School and the former director of the Edmond J. Safra Center for Ethics at Harvard ...

described

free and open-source software Free and open-source software (FOSS) is a term used to refer to groups of software consisting of both free software and open-source software where anyone is freely licensed to use, copy, study, and change the software in any way, and the source ...

as anti-rivalrous: "It's not just that code is non-rival; it's that code in particular, and (at least some) knowledge in general, is, as Weber calls it, 'anti-rival'. I am not only not harmed when you share an anti-rival good: I benefit."

Network effects

The production of anti-rival goods typically benefits from

network effect In economics, a network effect (also called network externality or demand-side economies of scale) is the phenomenon by which the value or utility a user derives from a good or service depends on the number of users of compatible products. Net ...

s. Leung (2006) quotes from Weber (2004), "Under conditions of anti-rivalness, as the size of the Internet-connected group increases, and there is a heterogeneous distribution of motivations with people who have a high level of interest and some resources to invest, then the large group is more likely, all things being equal, to provide the good than is a small group." Although this term is a neologism, this category of goods may be neither new nor specific to the

Internet The Internet (or internet) is the global system of interconnected computer networks that uses the Internet protocol suite (TCP/IP) to communicate between networks and devices. It is a '' network of networks'' that consists of private, pub ...

era. According to Lessig, English also meets the criteria, as any

natural language In neuropsychology, linguistics, and philosophy of language, a natural language or ordinary language is any language that has evolved naturally in humans through use and repetition without conscious planning or premeditation. Natural languages ...

is an anti-rival good. The term also invokes reciprocity and the concept of a

gift economy A gift economy or gift culture is a system of exchange where valuables are not sold, but rather given without an explicit agreement for immediate or future rewards. Social norms and customs govern giving a gift in a gift culture; although there ...

Data sets

Nikander et al. insist that some

data set A data set (or dataset) is a collection of data. In the case of tabular data, a data set corresponds to one or more database tables, where every column of a table represents a particular variable, and each row corresponds to a given record of the ...

s are anti-rivalrous. This claim rests on three observations: # It's cheaper to share than exchange data, because exchange requires ''erasing'' in addition to ''transferring'' data. # If the cost of copying is negligible, then the

Pareto optimal Pareto efficiency or Pareto optimality is a situation where no action or allocation is available that makes one individual better off without making another worse off. The concept is named after Vilfredo Pareto (1848–1923), Italian civil engine ...

allocation of any such data set is (near) universal availability. # The value of many data sets increases with the number of users, because the shared knowledge tends to reduce the barriers to understanding and collaboration. This contrasts sharply with material goods, where consumption by one reduces and may eliminate the value to another. Of course, this assumes that the data shared does not involve uses that would likely harm humans.See, e.g., , and .

References

{{Goodtypes Goods (economics)

Free open-source software

Network effects

Data sets

See also

References