A Simple Public-Goods Game Based Incentive Mechanism for Resource Provision in P2P Networks

Abstract

P2P networks can be thought as common goods in that they rely on voluntary provision of resources from individual peers (storage space or bandwidth, etc.) to support the creation and operation of service in P2P network. But, there exist social dilemma in P2P resource provision: Cooperators produce a valuable common good at some cost to themselves while defectors attempt to exploit the resource without contributing. Thus groups of cooperators are better off than groups of defectors. However, in any mixed group, defectors outperform cooperators and hence the dilemma. In this paper, we propose a P2P resource provision mechanism based on public goods game. The key point of this scheme lies in that: small entry fee is set for all peers, and peers can voluntarily join P2P resource provision system. After entering, each peer can independently choose to provide resource or freeride. Furthermore, some specific cooperators (so-called punishers) can voluntarily punish those defectors, which will bring small punishment cost to those punishers. For evolutionary dynamics, each peer simply imitates the strategy of peer with better utility. Theoretical analysis and experimental results show that the proposed mechanism can incentivize peers to contribute resource, and the whole P2P network will almost converge to the state of punisher.