Device-funded vs Ad-funded Platforms

Federico Etro ()

Working Papers - Economics from Universita' degli Studi di Firenze, Dipartimento di Scienze per l'Economia e l'Impresa

Abstract: We analyze device-funded and ad-funded platforms with differentiated ecosystems supporting apps provided under monopolistic competition. The incentives of a device-funded platform in investing in app curation, introducing and pricing its own apps and setting commissions on in-app purchases of external apps are largely aligned with those of consumers, while this is not necessarily the case for the ad-funded platform. In particular, consumers gain from a positive commission set by the device-funded platform because this implies a comparatively lower price of the device, and platform’s apps are introduced and priced internalizing the impact on consumer welfare, perfectly in models of horizontal differentiation and partially in models of vertical differentiation.

Keywords: Platforms; business models; monopolistic competition; horizontal differentiation; vertical differentiation. (search for similar items in EconPapers)
JEL-codes: L1 L4 (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Pages: 38 pages
Date: 2020
New Economics Papers: this item is included in nep-com, nep-ind and nep-pay
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Journal Article: Device-funded vs ad-funded platforms (2021)
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