---
description: When contributors own pieces of the network they build, individual self-interest aligns with collective benefit, transforming network effects from value extraction into value generation for all participants
type: claim
domain: living-agents
created: 2026-02-16
confidence: likely
source: "TeleoHumanity Axioms (8-axiom version)"
---

# ownership alignment turns network effects from extractive to generative

Network effects are the most powerful force in modern systems -- networks become more valuable as more people use them. But network effects alone are agnostic about who captures the value. The current internet model concentrates value in platform owners while extracting from contributors. Social media users generate the content that makes the network valuable but capture none of the network's growing value.

Ownership alignment inverts this dynamic. When contributors own stakes in the network they help build, a positive feedback loop emerges: better contributions lead to network growth, which increases value for everyone, which incentivizes more contribution. Individual self-interest begins to serve collective benefit rather than competing with it.

This is not just an economic design choice -- it is a coordination mechanism. Since [[AI alignment is a coordination problem not a technical problem]], aligning incentives through ownership is one of the few known approaches that scales without requiring central control. Since [[collective superintelligence is the alternative to monolithic AI controlled by a few]], the ownership structure determines whether the resulting intelligence serves the few or the many.

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Relevant Notes:
- [[AI alignment is a coordination problem not a technical problem]] -- ownership alignment is a coordination solution, not a technical one
- [[collective superintelligence is the alternative to monolithic AI controlled by a few]] -- ownership structure determines who the superintelligence serves
- [[the internet enabled global communication but not global cognition]] -- ownership misalignment is one reason the internet failed to produce cognition from communication
- [[network value scales quadratically for connections but exponentially for group-forming networks]] -- the scaling dynamics that ownership alignment captures or forfeits
- [[collective intelligence is a measurable property of group interaction structure not aggregated individual ability]] -- equal participation structure increases collective intelligence, which ownership incentivizes

Topics:
- [[maps/livingip overview]]
- [[maps/LivingIP architecture]]
- [[network structures]]
