In the inverse commons, the opposite results of the law of the commons

Tragedy of the commons

The tragedy of the commons is a dilemma arising from the situation in which multiple individuals, acting independently and rationally consulting their own self-interest, will ultimately deplete a shared limited resource, even when it is clear that it is not in anyone's long-term interest for this...

 effect are witnessed. That is, individuals contributing knowledge

Knowledge

Knowledge is a familiarity with someone or something unknown, which can include information, facts, descriptions, or skills acquired through experience or education. It can refer to the theoretical or practical understanding of a subject...

 and content for the good of the community

Community

The term community has two distinct meanings:*a group of interacting people, possibly living in close proximity, and often refers to a group that shares some common values, and is attributed with social cohesion within a shared geographical location, generally in social units larger than a household...

 rather than extracting resources for their own personal gain. Examples of this are free and open source software

Free and open source software

Free and open-source software or free/libre/open-source software is software that is liberally licensed to grant users the right to use, study, change, and improve its design through the availability of its source code...

 and Wikipedia

Wikipedia

Wikipedia is a free, web-based, collaborative, multilingual encyclopedia project supported by the non-profit Wikimedia Foundation. Its 20 million articles have been written collaboratively by volunteers around the world. Almost all of its articles can be edited by anyone with access to the site,...

. This phenomenon is linked to "viral" effects and increases in prominence as individuals contribute altruistically

Altruism

Altruism is a concern for the welfare of others. It is a traditional virtue in many cultures, and a core aspect of various religious traditions, though the concept of 'others' toward whom concern should be directed can vary among cultures and religions. Altruism is the opposite of...

 and for social gain.

The phenomenon is also known as "comedy of the commons" and "the cornucopia of the commons."

It is one of four outcomes:

	Property rights	Common ownership or lack of property rights
Bad outcome/tragedy	Tragedy of the anticommons Tragedy of the anticommons The tragedy of the anticommons is a neologism coined by Michael Heller to describe a coordination breakdown where the existence of numerous rightsholders frustrates achieving a socially desirable outcome. The term mirrors the older term tragedy of the commons used to describe coordination...	Tragedy of the commons Tragedy of the commons The tragedy of the commons is a dilemma arising from the situation in which multiple individuals, acting independently and rationally consulting their own self-interest, will ultimately deplete a shared limited resource, even when it is clear that it is not in anyone's long-term interest for this...
Good outcome/cornucopia/comedy* (*in the sense of "drama with a happy ending")	normal case	Inverse commons

The prevalent outcome depends on the details of the situation. The inverse commons outcome is likely when the cost of the contribution is much less than its value over time. Information has this property. For example, it costs very little for a Wikipedia contributor to enter knowledge from their experience into Wikipedia's servers, and very little for Wikipedia to serve that information over and over again to readers, generating great value over time. Unlike the pasture of a physical commons, information isn't degraded much by use. Thus the value of Wikipedia increases over time, attracting more readers some of whom become contributors, forming a virtuous cycle.