We study the effect of different levels of information on two-sided platform profits – under monopoly and competition. One side (developers) is always informed about all prices and therefore forms responsive expectations. In contrast, we allow the other side (users) to be uninformed about...

This paper provides a first pass at clarifying the economic tradeoffs between two polar strategies for market intermediation: the merchant mode, in which the intermediary buys from sellers and resells to buyers; and the two-sided platform mode, under which the intermediary enables affiliated...

We study the economic tradeoffs that drive organizations to position themselves closer to or further away from a multi-sided platform (MSP) business model, relative to three traditional alternatives: vertically integrated firms, resellers or input suppliers. These tradeoffs lead to a...