1) Assurance contracts have been used in the past, just in a non-obvious way. The type of collective actions problems being solved traditionally have been via government or clubs and other, non-collective action/public good type settings by things like escrow type solutions.
2) Until the internet and this form of mass communication/connect emerged the “problem” was not the assurance of commitment to contribute but the problem of cost in coordinating any such effort. The “fixed” costs of just proposing a solution and gathering a bunch of people to take action dominated and most of the big issues were being addressed by existing institutions.
Perhaps one way of looking at this is:
1) Assurance contracts have been used in the past, just in a non-obvious way. The type of collective actions problems being solved traditionally have been via government or clubs and other, non-collective action/public good type settings by things like escrow type solutions.
2) Until the internet and this form of mass communication/connect emerged the “problem” was not the assurance of commitment to contribute but the problem of cost in coordinating any such effort. The “fixed” costs of just proposing a solution and gathering a bunch of people to take action dominated and most of the big issues were being addressed by existing institutions.