Hardin wrote the paper at a time when overpopulation was considered a very real and imminent problem; the Science article was published the same year as The Population Bomb, a book written by a Stanford biologist who argued that overpopulation would lead to mass famine, disease, and war, resulting in the deaths of hundreds of millions of people in the 1970s.
A mass die-off failed to materialize, but Hardin's phrase has survived and remains in use, especially in discussions involving the cause of climate change. These days, the tragedy of the commons applies to everything from deforestation in the Amazon to traffic congestion. It's also a topic of discussion among economists.
Elinor Ostrom, a 2009 Nobel Laureate in economics, argued that Hardin's scenario was flawed by failing to consider the possibility that people or businesses can cooperate to ensure common goods are preserved and that common goods are generally shared on terms set by a community.