Negative rivalry in use: toward a knowledge-sharing perspective in the digital economy era

Purpose This study aims to introduce and prove the existence of negative rivalry in use, which should be an integral part of goods taxonomy, from the perspective of knowledge sharing and further present the critical role of knowledge sharing in the digital economy era by reviewing the literature, theoretical analysis and real-world cases. It also aims to open a new door for re-recognizing knowledge sharing through an interdisciplinary framework. Design/methodology/approach This study proves the existence of negative rivalry through both theoretical analysis (4-E model) and real-world cases, especially the cases of Tesla and ChatGPT, and puts up new reasons for knowledge sharing in the era of digital economy through interdisciplinary methods. Findings The authors find out that there are many new phenomena beyond the spectrum of current goods taxonomy, especially beyond the priori understanding of rivalry in use. Digital platforms such as ChatGPT should have been “used up” in no time, for they have attracted so massive users according to (positive) rivalry in use, or should have been unchanged at most according to non-rivalry in use. But what we see is their rapid upgrading with the help of billions of users. The reason is that negative rivalry in use has completely been neglected. The authors find out that the process of knowledge sharing unveils the unrecognized attribute of rivalry in use, i.e. negative rivalry in use, which serves as the fundamental driving force of the breathtaking growth of all kinds of digital platforms. Originality/value This study originally put up a 4-E model of goods’ rivalry in use, the brand new term, i.e. negative rivalry in use, and proves its existence and working mechanism from the perspective of knowledge sharing. With the introduction of negative rivalry in use, the traditional four-type goods classification model is extended into a six-type model, which may be a sound marginal contribution, to the best of the authors’ knowledge. The study may reshape people’s mindsets on goods usage, especially knowledge management, into a more open-sharing model because it shows that there is very likely a positive-sum game instead of a zero- or negative-sum game for shared knowledge per se and its platform in the process of knowledge sharing in the era of digital economy.