Free-ride

People might contribute in the beginning before they really understand the incentive structure of the game, but as comprehension dawns they realise that the rational thing to do would be to free-ride and start to do so, which leads to the resulting decay in the contributions to the public account.

Unfortunately, each and every one of us might have a positive incentive to try to free-ride on the efforts of others.

With decreased risk but increased potential rewards from the state-building operation, they may choose to free-ride on the operation.