Antirivalness is orthogonal to nonrivalness

Context

Many economists treat antirival goods as simply "more nonrival," but this misses a crucial distinction that [[f-xavier-olleros|F. Xavier Olleros]] identified in his [[olleros-antirival-goods-2018|2018 paper]]. Understanding these as separate dimensions rather than a continuum fundamentally changes how we approach designing commons and [[network-effects|network effects]] systems.

Analysis

[[f-xavier-olleros|Olleros]] argues that nonrival and antirival operate on orthogonal axes:

Nonrivalness is a property of the units being shared:

• Can the good be copied or shared without depletion?
• Does one person's consumption reduce availability for others?
• Example: An mp3 file is inherently nonrival - copying it doesn't diminish the original

Antirivalness is a property of the system enabling sharing:

• Does the sharing mechanism generate increasing returns?
• Does more usage create more value for all participants?
• Example: The Napster platform became more valuable as more people used it

This orthogonality means you can have four quadrants:

1. Rival and non-antirival: Traditional physical goods
2. Nonrival but non-antirival: A PDF sitting on a server
3. Rival but antirival: Traffic light networks (rival physical objects, antirival coordination system)
4. Nonrival AND antirival: Wikipedia, open source software with active communities

Supporting Evidence

From [[olleros-antirival-goods-2018|Olleros (2018)]]:

The traffic light example demonstrates antirivalness without full nonrivalness:

• The physical lights are rival (expensive to install in each city)
• The color code system is strongly antirival (more valuable as more cities adopt it)
• Installing traffic lights remains exclusive to cities that can afford them
• Yet the coordination benefit grows with network adoption

The mp3/Napster example shows nonrivalness requiring antirival systems for impact:

• Mp3 files alone were nonrival but didn't transform the music industry
• Only when embedded in Napster's antirival platform did they enable global music sharing
• The platform provided discovery, collective library building, and network effects
• Nonrivalness enabled low-cost sharing; antirivalness created compelling benefits

Notes

This distinction is foundational for co-goods theory. Physical products are inherently rival, but we can create antirival systems around them by:

• Opening up designs and knowledge (creating nonrival components)
• Building participation mechanisms (creating antirival dynamics)
• Designing feedback loops that increase value with usage

The key insight: we're not trying to make physical goods nonrival (impossible), but rather maximizing the nonrival/antirival ratio by designing systems where the non-physical components (knowledge, community, feedback) become the primary value drivers.