  Established already in the Biblical times, the Matthew effect stands for the
fact that in societies rich tend to get richer and the potent even more
powerful. Here we investigate a game theoretical model describing the evolution
of cooperation on structured populations where the distribution of public goods
is driven by the reproductive success of individuals. Phase diagrams reveal
that cooperation is promoted irrespective of the uncertainty by strategy
adoptions and the type of interaction graph, yet the complete dominance of
cooperators is elusive due to the spontaneous emergence of super-persistent
defectors that owe their survival to extremely rare microscopic patterns. This
indicates that success-driven mechanisms are crucial for effectively harvesting
benefits from collective actions, but that they may also account for the
observed persistence of maladaptive behavior.
