Why share in peer-to-peer networks?

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.

REFERENCES

• 1: E. Adar and B. A. Huberman. Free riding on Gnutella. First Monday, 5(10), 2000.
• 2: M. Afergan and R. Sami. Repeated-game modeling of multicast overlays. In INFOCOM. IEEE, 2006.
• 3: B. Cohen. Incentives build robustness in bittorrent. In Workshop on Economics of Peer-to-Peer systems, June 2003.
• 4: Narsingh Deo, Graph Theory with Applications to Engineering and Computer Science (Prentice Hall Series in Automatic Computation), Prentice-Hall, Inc., Upper Saddle River, NJ, 1974
• 5: Joan Feigenbaum , Scott Shenker, Distributed algorithmic mechanism design: recent results and future directions, Proceedings of the 6th international workshop on Discrete algorithms and methods for mobile computing and communications, September 28-28, 2002, Atlanta, Georgia, USA [doi>10.1145/570810.570812]
• 6: D. Fudenberg and J. Tirole. Game Theory. MIT Press, 1991.
• 7: Daniel Hughes , Geoff Coulson , James Walkerdine, Free Riding on Gnutella Revisited: The Bell Tolls?, IEEE Distributed Systems Online, v.6 n.6, p.1, June 2005 [doi>10.1109/MDSO.2005.31]
• 8: A. Kankanhalli, B. C. Tan, and K.-K. Wei. Contributing knowledge to electronic knowledge repositories: An empirical investigation. MIS Quarterly, 29(1):113--143, 2005.
• 9: R. Krishnan, M. D. Smith, Z. Tang, and R. Telang. The virtual commons: Why free-riding can be tolerated in file sharing networks? In International Conference on Information Systems, November 2002.
• 10: R. D. Putnam. Bowling Alone: The Collapse and Revival of American Community. Simon & Schuster, New York, 2000.
• 11: K. Ranganathan, M. Ripeanu, A. Sarin, and I. Foster. To share or not to share: An analysis of incentives to contribute in collaborative file-sharing environments. In Workshop on Economics of Peer-to-Peer Systems, June 2003.
• 12: J. Shneidman and D. C. Parkes. Rationality and self-interest in peer to peer networks. In 2nd Int. Workshop on Peer-to-Peer Systems, 2003.
• 13: S. Stefan, P. K. Gummadi, and S. D. Gribble. A measurement study of peer-to-peer file sharing systems. In Multimedia Computing and Networking 2002, January 2002.
• 14: B. Theodore, L. Blume, and H. R. Varian. On the private provision of public goods. Journal of Public Economics, 29(1):25--49, 1986.

INDEX TERMS

Primary Classification:
  C. Computer Systems Organization
  C.2 COMPUTER-COMMUNICATION NETWORKS
      C.2.4 Distributed Systems

Additional Classification:
  H. Information Systems
  H.1 MODELS AND PRINCIPLES
      H.1.2 User/Machine Systems
          Subjects: Human factors
  H.4 INFORMATION SYSTEMS APPLICATIONS
      H.4.m Miscellaneous

General Terms:
Design, Economics, Human Factors, Theory

Keywords:
file-sharing, networks, p2p, peer-to-peer