Addictive Platforms
研究了平台通过牺牲服务质量来争夺消费者注意力的竞争，发现竞争加剧可能因平台提高成瘾性而损害消费者，限制使用或收费可降低成瘾性。
We study competition for consumer attention in which platforms can sacrifice service quality for attention. A platform can choose the “addictiveness” of its service. A more addictive platform yields consumers a lower utility of participation but a higher marginal utility of allocating attention. We provide conditions under which increased competition can harm consumers by encouraging platforms to offer low-quality services. In particular, if attention is scarce, increased competition reduces the quality of services because business-stealing incentives induce platforms to increase addictiveness. Restricting consumers’ platform usage may decrease addictiveness and improve consumer welfare. A platform’s ability to charge for its service can also decrease addictiveness. This paper was accepted by Joshua Gans, business strategy.