Cheap pseudonyms (Friedman–Resnick)

The 2001 result by Eric Friedman and Paul Resnick that when online identities are free to abandon and replace, communities slide toward a "dues-paying" equilibrium in which newcomers are distrusted by default — because a fresh newcomer and a cheat who just shed a ruined name are indistinguishable. The result is conditional, not inevitable, but its lesson is load-bearing for this book: the problem was never identity, it was cheap identity. Reputation needs a costly-to-shed anchor to attach to.