alt Hacker News> People have a strong instinct for reciprocity and it is strongest when it is entirely their choice.
My experience disagree with that statement. The places where I find the strongest form of reciprocity is when social norms heavily emphasize reciprocity and punish defectors, which is typical in environments where peoples survivability depend on social norms and reciprocity.
A typical example is rural community vs a city. In a rural community there is existing and historical dependency on reciprocity to handle accidents (a barn burning down, a poor harvest, a bad hunt/fishing season, and so on). Defectors from the social norms can be punished for several generations ("I remember that your grandfather did not help my grandfather"), which makes defecting rare and expensive. The stereotypical example from large cities is that a person can bleed out on the street and people will continue to walk past, pretending to not see.
Naturally neither is an utopia and both has their own problem, but saying that the strongest form of reciprocity is found in places with no social norms, social expectations or enforcement seems to be plainly wrong from my experience.
> The places where I find the strongest form of reciprocity is when social norms heavily emphasize reciprocity and punish defectors
I think it is important to make a distinction between chosen reciprocity and expected reciprocity. Both are valid but come from different circumstances and motivation.
If you are an open source proponent, how did you become one? For me, it was growing up at a time when the vast majority of software that I needed was not free. Then the open source movement took hold and brought a wide choice of high quality free software in virtually every category. This was software you can trust more, learn from, and build upon because the source was available. And the developers have little or no expectation, it was free even though it could easily compete with proprietary options. This made a big impact on me and helped me recognize the value of open source.
Survival is not a relevant concern when it comes to open source. I'd wager that most people who advocate for it were impacted by a similar experience. Expected and transactional reciprocity is something that people are more likely to see as a burden. If you want to spread an idea, it's not a very effective approach. People generally recognize and appreciate a meaningful sacrifice for a good cause. Attaching strings makes the sacrifice confusing. In a pay it forward kind of system, chosen reciprocity sends a much clearer message. And that may not always be the intent, but it is effective either way.
Some people, maybe even the majority of people, may choose to use it without giving back. That is also a part of human instinct. As someone else mentioned, corporations that care only about profit will take advantage of the opportunity. But the beauty of software is that it can be copied at virtually no cost. You can write software for the positive impact and let the others do what they will do.