Trust Is Cheaper Than Control
Believe it or not, trust pays off.
Systems and institutions that are Designed from Trust have economic advantages. For example:
Intersections that implement traffic calming avoid the technology and operations costs we assume are necessary for traffic safety, enforcement and punishment, like stoplights, traffic cameras, and radar guns.
Conferences using Open Space Technology don’t have to worry if their expensive keynote speaker doesn’t show up, because they don’t need one! Instead, participants are riveted by having to step up and step in to create the essence of the conference themselves.
Organizations using open content or open source software like Wikipedia and Wikimedia (its software platform) don’t have to pay licenses, use Digital Rights Management software to protect their content and enforce it all. Instead, the content and software are available for others to use, on purpose.
Here are four videos that go deeper into why trust costs less:
It saddens me that we have so normalized the costs of mistrust that we don’t notice them. This sequence of posts is my attempt to dislodge that misconception from our collective consciousness.