Collective action fails because no one wants to be the only one who shows up. COMMIT solves this with credible conditional commitments — stake money on your presence, coordinate publicly, and let the incentives do the rest.
"Nobody moves first because moving first is a sucker's bet. Put money on the table and you flip it — now showing up is the smart move." — The problem COMMIT was built to solve
Commit €X to be at [PLACE] at [TIME]. The amount is yours to choose — even €5 is enough skin in the game. Your commitment and everyone else's is fully public.
As others commit, the total pool grows. You can see exactly how many people are in and how much is at stake. When the threshold is hit, everyone knows the event is happening.
At the time of the event, enable geolocation to confirm you're there. If you show up and others don't, you receive a pro-rata share of their forfeited stakes. This makes showing up the dominant strategy.
Bootstrap protest attendance. When enough people commit credibly, momentum becomes self-fulfilling. Turns "I'll go if others go" into a binding mechanism.
End the plague of last-minute cancellations. Dinner parties, meetups, reunions — when everyone has skin in the game, they actually show up.
Validate demand before committing to a venue. Reach a quorum threshold first, then lock in the booking — the investor soft-circle model for events.
Local governance, neighbourhood action, industry assemblies. Any situation where collective presence matters and the "I'll go if others go" problem is blocking action.
The classic collective action problem: everyone wants the outcome but nobody wants to bear the cost alone. The result is paralysis — even when a clear majority wants to act.
COMMIT resolves this with a mechanism borrowed from venture capital's soft-circling practice: conditional commitments that activate simultaneously. Your commitment only binds if enough others commit too.
Once staked, the dominant strategy shifts. You've already paid the entry cost. Now showing up is free, and no-shows are penalised. The equilibrium is everyone showing up.
Showing up wins no matter what others do. So everyone shows up. That's the whole trick.
Join the waitlist. Be the first to coordinate events where everyone actually shows up.