Spam, the Tragedy of Commons and targeted advertisements

I can’t remember the last time I answered a call from an unknown number. My first instinct these days is to cut the call. It’s fair to say that most of my friends follow the same course as it’s more often than not spam. I find it tragic that an invention that helped keep people connected has been hijacked by spammers and scammers. As unfortunate as this situation is, it’s probably what we’d expect given various precedents. The one mental model that explains this and could probably have predicted this is the Tragedy of Commons

The term traces its roots to the practice of cow grazing in the 1800s on Selsley Commons in the UK. Cattle owners would have their cows graze the common land which would in turn increase their output. Each cattle owner was thus incentivized to graze more and more cows to ensure their output was maximized. However, given the limited grass on the lands, having too many cows grazing would render the lands barren which would negatively affect the cows and thus the cattle owners. The eventual solution to this problem was to limit the number of cows each cattle owner would be permitted to own. This “tragedy” is applicable to any system where resources are limited and the wants are rather unlimited.

Coming back to telephones calls riddled with spam/scam, this is another example where the value of the entire telephonic system gets depleted because of the presence of these phone calls. Initially, it was beneficial for the spammers because they were rare and more likely to elicit responses. Now, because many users such as myself do not answer phone calls anymore, the frequency of the calls goes up further. The best solution, as in the case of the original commons problem, would be for some form of enforcement of restrictions to make the common land (people answering phone calls) more productive. However, as these individuals making calls cannot unilaterally decide for others, we end up with a system where they continue making unsolicited phone calls and thus continue to make telephone calls more and more unwelcome.

Now, this is one reason I sometimes welcome targeted ads that we get from the likes of Google, Facebook and Amazon. These companies ensure the ads are extremely focused and relevant —this generally ensures we aren’t put off by the content of the ads. The better targeting also means fewer ads have the desired outcome in terms of getting clicks and purchases. This in turn means we continue using the services as the number of ads shown isn’t too much. For all the hate these companies get for gathering personal information, this is precisely the reason their products have so far not fallen into the “spam trap”.