Spam may be described as a "tragedy of the commons";

We depend on the Internet for social, educational and commercial endeavours. It is becoming as essential as municipal water systems and the electricity grid. Yet it suffers from a destructive phenomenon known as the “Tragedy of the Commons.” The tragedy of the commons was first described by William Forster Lloyd in 1833. The villages of both old and New England were built around a central public area of land referred to as the commons. He observed that when the commons are used as pastureland available to all, cattle owners have a short term interest in increasing the size of their herds. But the size of the herds on the commons will soon exceed its carrying capacity. The commons will be doomed by overgrazing. Eventually, the cattle-owners suffer, abandon the commons and find a way to ensure a sustainable source of pastureland. The term describes the fundamental conflict between individuals' self interest and the common good. "The parable demonstrates how unrestricted access to a resource such as a pasture ultimately dooms the resource because of over-exploitation. This occurs because the benefits of exploitation accrue to individuals, while the costs of exploitation are distributed between all those exploiting the resource. So the unsolicited commercial email and spam are a classic tragedy of the commons. The often cited commons is freedom to say what you want to anyone you like. Complete freedom of expression without the need of a printer, publisher and distributor. This is a good aspect of the Internet, but it is not a commons that can be depleted. You can always have more ideas to post on a website or blog, and many people behind you will do the same. The ideas are not limited, nor are the canvas upon which they can be painted. Some governments limit freedom of speech on the Internet; they are keeping some people from accessing the commons, but the commons is still there.The physical and logical identity of the user is being spoiled. It is too easy to impersonate an individual (email address) or an enterprise (website). This is how spam, phishing, viruses and worms get started. However, the address and naming space of the internet is very large and not completely depleted with misuse. The people and companies move to another fresh area by changing their internet identities. For example, by convention many people in higher education use completely disposable email addresses that are a seemingly random set of letters and numbers at schooldot-edu due to this spam is consider as tragedy of commons.