Why share in peer-to-peer networks?

Authors:
Lian Jian;Jeffrey K. MacKie-Mason
Affiliations:
University of Michigan, Ann Arbor, MI;University of Michigan, Ann Arbor, MI
Venue:
Proceedings of the 10th international conference on Electronic commerce
Year:
2008

Citing 4
Cited 5

Distributed algorithmic mechanism design: recent results and future directions

DIALM '02 Proceedings of the 6th international workshop on Discrete algorithms and methods for mobile computing and communications
Free Riding on Gnutella Revisited: The Bell Tolls?

IEEE Distributed Systems Online
Graph Theory with Applications to Engineering and Computer Science (Prentice Hall Series in Automatic Computation)

Graph Theory with Applications to Engineering and Computer Science (Prentice Hall Series in Automatic Computation)
Contributing knowledge to electronic knowledge repositories: an empirical investigation

MIS Quarterly

Bandwidth allocation in peer-to-peer file sharing networks

Computer Communications
Peer-assisted online games with social reciprocity

Proceedings of the Nineteenth International Workshop on Quality of Service
Cooperating with free riders in unstructured P2P networks

Computer Networks: The International Journal of Computer and Telecommunications Networking
Research Note---To Continue Sharing or Not to Continue Sharing? An Empirical Analysis of User Decision in Peer-to-Peer Sharing Networks

Information Systems Research
"Welcome!": social and psychological predictors of volunteer socializers in online communities

Proceedings of the 2013 conference on Computer supported cooperative work

Quantified Score

Hi-index	0.00

Visualization

Abstract

Prior theory and empirical work emphasize the enormous free-riding problem facing peer-to-peer (P2P) sharing networks. Nonetheless, many P2P networks thrive. We explore two possible explanations that do not rely on altruism or explicit mechanisms imposed on the network: direct and indirect private incentives for the provision of public goods. The direct incentive is a traffic redistribution effect that advantages the sharing peer. We find this incentive is likely insufficient to motivate equilibrium content sharing in large networks. We then approach P2P networks as a graph-theoretic problem and present sufficient conditions for sharing and free-riding to co-exist due to indirect incentives we call generalized reciprocity.