Stable streaming platforms: a cooperative game approach

Loe Schlicher, Bas Dietzenbacher and Marieke Musegaas

Omega, 2024, vol. 125, issue C

Abstract: Streaming platforms such as Spotify are popular media services where content creators may offer their content. Because these platforms operate in a highly competitive market, content creators may leave the platform and join elsewhere. This paper studies conditions under which content creators have no incentives to leave the platform and thus stability can be preserved. We introduce a stylized model for streaming platform situations and associate these situations with a cooperative game. We focus on the (non)emptiness of the core to analyze the stability of the streaming platforms. It turns out that both stable and unstable streaming platforms exist. We show that for streaming platforms operating in a market where users have completely opposite streaming behavior, stability cannot always be preserved. However, in markets where users are more similar in their streaming behavior, stability can be preserved. We further analyze the stability of streaming platforms by means of numerical experiments. Our results indicate that stability of streaming platforms generally is a delicate matter. Streaming platforms are more likely to be stable in markets where users are similar in their streaming behavior. To avoid that content creators leave the platform, it is therefore recommended to focus on particular market segments where these similarities occur.

Keywords: Streaming platforms; Stability; Cooperative game theory; Core (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2024
References: Add references at CitEc
Citations: View citations in EconPapers (3)

Downloads: (external link)
http://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0305048323001846
Full text for ScienceDirect subscribers only

Related works:
This item may be available elsewhere in EconPapers: Search for items with the same title.

Export reference: BibTeX RIS (EndNote, ProCite, RefMan) HTML/Text

Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:eee:jomega:v:125:y:2024:i:c:s0305048323001846

Ordering information: This journal article can be ordered from
http://www.elsevier.com/wps/find/supportfaq.cws_home/regional
https://shop.elsevie ... _01_ooc_1&version=01

DOI: 10.1016/j.omega.2023.103020

Access Statistics for this article

Omega is currently edited by B. Lev

More articles in Omega from Elsevier
Bibliographic data for series maintained by Catherine Liu ().