The house I currently live in got broken into during the summer of 2022, while only two of my roommates were in town. Suddenly, while on vacation with my family, I was on the phone with home camera system companies. Of course, in the heat of the moment all of my roommates offered to pitch in to buy the cameras, or offered that their parents would pitch in. I didn’t think this was necessarily the right time to be stingy so I went ahead and bought 4 Blink cameras before Venmo-requesting anyone.
Now, fourteen months later, no one has paid me back. I bring it up from time to time and say “remember when you all offered to pay for these?” but it never seems to land very well. However, I granted everyone access to the camera system’s App and they all reap the benefits of 24/7 camera security. This is an example of the free rider problem. The Blink is our shared resource that, due to its common benefit, has resulted in people simply not contributing to it at all. Once each of them saw that the other 7 roommates also offered to pay for the cameras, they felt less inclined to actually follow through with their contributions. Since it was a one-time payment, I can’t realistically just take the resource and its benefits away from my roommates, but economically speaking I probably should’ve.
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