Free Rider
A participant who benefits from a good or service without contributing to its cost — the typical reason private markets under-supply public goods. If everyone can enjoy the lighthouse without paying, no individual lighthouse-builder can recover their costs, and so private lighthouses do not get built. Free-riding is also why open-source maintainers burn out, why neighborhood-watch programs struggle to sustain volunteer hours, and why collective-action problems are persistent across many domains.
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Related terms
Ambiguity Aversion · Anchored Assumption · Asset Beta · Bank ROE Spread · Banker Pitch Deck · Beta
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