spmm Lv 1
These concerns come up frequently and I confess I am unable to think of real world competitive situations outside of examinations and the sharp end of military research, where the workings of a 'win' are not openly available. In sports, however much secret training and special dieting goes on, the win and how you achieved it is open and public and analysed again and again on video. In science the win requires publication, extensive peer validation of the processes and 'winners' are then often protected by patents.
In competition between firms, who are competing openly, concepts like first to market, economies of scale and disruption confer advantage and again patents protect proprietary portions of the business until disruptive forces change the landscape.
In foldit there is no way of examining a win and what was done to make it happen, neither the winning results or the method of working is available, players don't get to see and interact with the top solutions or get a synopsis of process, ie this result was achieved by running x,y,z scripts for four days with 1 hour of handfolding, or whatever.
So it would seem that in foldit there is a corporate level of competition with the groups as firms, competing with each other and some excellent solo folders who also win frequently.
Regardless of how the competion is arranged imo it is the lack of after game analysis which is the concern of many people, so foldit appears secretive, with special tools available to only a few and with no way to learn from the workings of others which would happen in the real world. This can be frustrating to many people.
To preempt the 'this is a game not the real world' comments, note that players are assured that foldit has meaning in the real world, and is more than just a game which exists in its own universe for entertainment only.