Consider the difference between :
A ) Competition AGAINST someone else. Where the positive self interest of one person, is based on the negative self interests of another person. Typically a game where the defined objective is to have a larger part of a limited pool of resources, and where more to one individual must mean less so someone else. A zero-sum game. A game of winners and losers.
B ) Competition FOR the benefit of everyone. Where the positive self interests of the individual, is based on the positive self interests of oneself + all other individuals + society as a whole. Typically a game where the goal is to get MORE out of limited resources in the sense of more value for everyone, and where amount of resources is less important than intelligent use of resources. Resourcefulness. Which could also mean transforming something that used to be a problem, into a benefit for everyone, without downside. This is the good old non-zero-sum game. A game of only winners.
The first kind of competition has been widely criticized for very good reasons. The main problem is that natural resources are limited. While zero-sum-games brings a tendency to waste incredible amounts of natural resources. Especially communication and intelligence resources. The problem is fundamental : in a win-lose game there is never an incentive to share ones best information openly. On the contrary there is incentive to deceive and distract and lie. The internet will amplify this tendency : incredible amounts of noise fills up the space instead of helpful information. All of this also ruins the mutual trust between people. More control mechanisms are needed. More useless lawsuits. For the individual it is also depressing for self respect to base personal well being on the downfall of someone else.
Therefore it could be argued that win-lose games are in actuality lose-lose games. The "scarcity mindset" is the characteristic attitude in these kind of games. A race to the bottom.
In actual win-win games competition takes on a totally different meaning. Competition becomes a race to the top for everyone. Individuals compete for who can bring the most benefit to society. In win-win games the incentives line up for people to share openly their best information since everyone shares the same goal. If someone else can find improvements - great. If the rest of the group copies and evolves the best recipes from star individuals - even better for everyone. This means an abundance mindset where the entire community benefits from learning together.
The most interesting aspect of true win-win games is that the people who play in this way are incentiviced to be 100% honesty. Lying will be always risky , while genuine value-bringing behaviour is a safe winning strategy. This also means that groups of people can openly share their knowledge across the world, learn from each others experience and use the internet as an engine for exponential development of intelligence.
A typical example of win-lose ( or actually lose-lose ) competition : The US elections. Instead of a genuine dialogue about how to build a better country , we almost only see lying and propaganda intended to make the other party look bad in the hope of winning a place in the office. The amount of useless noise is overwhelming. Unbelievable amounts of time is wasted.
A typical example of a win-win competition : Steemit. Within the Steemit community an individual is rewarded for making great content, beautiful writing, poetry, works of art or developing awesome projects. It is the community which directly rewards the individual. And the best long term strategy for the individual is the bring maximum value to the community. This will benefit the writers, the readers and the rest of the internet.
Another interesting point to consider : In the pre-internet days when open sharing of information was more difficult, it was also more difficult to scale win-win competition to large groups of people. While in the age of the internet, the scaling of win-win competitions is easier than ever.
This is why the internet has a potential far beyond anything we have seen in history. It could evolve into a revolutionary new global economic model working intelligently for the benefit of all living beings on the planet. Which would be awesome.