IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/a/aea/jecper/v23y2009i3p21-36.html
   My bibliography  Save this article

Priced and Unpriced Online Markets

Author

Listed:
  • Benjamin Edelman

Abstract

Some online resources are free and others are not -- but it can be hard to predict which resources are in which category. In some cases, users are charged for things such as web-based e-mail, wireless Internet access, and software, while in other cases, they aren't. Zero prices offer important benefits, even relative to small positive prices. For one, fee-free access reduces transaction costs -- eliminating the need for billing systems as well as, in many cases, account setup, usernames, and the like. Furthermore, zero prices seem to create an environment of experimentation and progress for products and consumers. Finally, consumers overwhelmingly favor zero-price products, even beyond what might be predicted by their ordinary efforts to maximize consumer surplus. Yet experience in other contexts offers cause for concern. Although marginal costs may be near zero for many levels of use of online resources, costs generally eventually increase as usage nears a capacity constraint given by technological capability or system design. More generally, experience in other contexts repeatedly reveals overconsumption, scarcity, and even hoarding when resources are provided without charge. With competing forces both supporting and opposing zero prices, typical Internet-related activities -- like surfing the web, web searches, and e-mail, along with behind-the-scenes practices like domain names and the allocation of IP (Internet protocol) addresses -- present a natural context to reevaluate our sense of the tradeoffs that arise between free and a positive price.

Suggested Citation

  • Benjamin Edelman, 2009. "Priced and Unpriced Online Markets," Journal of Economic Perspectives, American Economic Association, vol. 23(3), pages 21-36, Summer.
  • Handle: RePEc:aea:jecper:v:23:y:2009:i:3:p:21-36
    Note: DOI: 10.1257/jep.23.3.21
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: http://www.aeaweb.org/articles.php?doi=10.1257/jep.23.3.21
    Download Restriction: no
    ---><---

    References listed on IDEAS

    as
    1. Alvin E. Roth, 2007. "Repugnance as a Constraint on Markets," Journal of Economic Perspectives, American Economic Association, vol. 21(3), pages 37-58, Summer.
    2. Starkie, David, 1998. "Allocating airport slots: a role for the market?," Journal of Air Transport Management, Elsevier, vol. 4(2), pages 111-116.
    3. Parry, I. W. H., 2002. "Comparing the efficiency of alternative policies for reducing traffic congestion," Journal of Public Economics, Elsevier, vol. 85(3), pages 333-362, September.
    4. Milton L. Mueller, 2004. "Ruling the Root: Internet Governance and the Taming of Cyberspace," MIT Press Books, The MIT Press, edition 1, volume 1, number 0262632985, April.
    5. Kristina Shampanier & Nina Mazar & Dan Ariely, 2007. "Zero as a Special Price: The True Value of Free Products," Marketing Science, INFORMS, vol. 26(6), pages 742-757, 11-12.
    6. David Levinson & Andrew Odlyzko, 2007. "Too Expensive to Meter: The influence of transaction costs in transportation and communication," Working Papers 200802, University of Minnesota: Nexus Research Group, revised Feb 2007.
    Full references (including those not matched with items on IDEAS)

    Citations

    Citations are extracted by the CitEc Project, subscribe to its RSS feed for this item.
    as


    Cited by:

    1. Bodo Herzog, 2018. "Valuation of Digital Platforms: Experimental Evidence for Google and Facebook," IJFS, MDPI, vol. 6(4), pages 1-13, October.
    2. Bellemare, Marc F. & Holmberg, Andrew M., 2010. "The Determinants of Music Piracy in a Sample of College Students," MPRA Paper 23641, University Library of Munich, Germany.

    Most related items

    These are the items that most often cite the same works as this one and are cited by the same works as this one.
    1. Lindsey, Robin, 2011. "State-dependent congestion pricing with reference-dependent preferences," Transportation Research Part B: Methodological, Elsevier, vol. 45(10), pages 1501-1526.
    2. Nicola Lacetera & Mario Macis & Robert Slonim, 2011. "Rewarding Altruism? A Natural Field Experiment," NBER Working Papers 17636, National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc.
    3. Peter Coles & John Cawley & Phillip B. Levine & Muriel Niederle & Alvin E. Roth & John J. Siegfried, 2010. "The Job Market for New Economists: A Market Design Perspective," Journal of Economic Perspectives, American Economic Association, vol. 24(4), pages 187-206, Fall.
    4. Simon P. Anderson & Régis Renault, 2011. "Price Discrimination," Chapters, in: André de Palma & Robin Lindsey & Emile Quinet & Roger Vickerman (ed.), A Handbook of Transport Economics, chapter 22, Edward Elgar Publishing.
    5. Muriel Niederle & Alvin E. Roth, 2009. "The Effects of a Centralized Clearinghouse on Job Placement, Wages, and Hiring Practices," NBER Chapters, in: Studies of Labor Market Intermediation, pages 235-271, National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc.
    6. Alessandro Avenali & Tiziana D'Alfonso & Claudio Leporelli & Giorgio Matteucci & Alberto Nastasi & Pierfrancesco Reverberi, 2014. "A supervised market mechanism for efficient airport slot allocation," DIAG Technical Reports 2014-03, Department of Computer, Control and Management Engineering, Universita' degli Studi di Roma "La Sapienza".
    7. Lacetera, Nicola & Macis, Mario, 2008. "Motivating Altruism: A Field Study," IZA Discussion Papers 3770, Institute of Labor Economics (IZA).
    8. Andrea Baranzini & Stefano Carattini & Linda Tesauro, 2021. "Designing Effective and Acceptable Road Pricing Schemes: Evidence from the Geneva Congestion Charge," Environmental & Resource Economics, Springer;European Association of Environmental and Resource Economists, vol. 79(3), pages 417-482, July.
    9. Greiff, Matthias & Egbert, Henrik, 2016. "A Survey of the Empirical Evidence on PWYW Pricing," MPRA Paper 68693, University Library of Munich, Germany.
    10. Avraham Stoler & Judd B. Kessler & Tamar Ashkenazi & Alvin E. Roth & Jacob Lavee, 2017. "Incentivizing Organ Donor Registrations with Organ Allocation Priority," Health Economics, John Wiley & Sons, Ltd., vol. 26(4), pages 500-510, April.
    11. Tobias Gesche, 2022. "Reference‐price shifts and customer antagonism: Evidence from reviews for online auctions," Journal of Economics & Management Strategy, Wiley Blackwell, vol. 31(3), pages 558-578, August.
    12. Kenju Kamei & Louis Putterman, 2018. "Reputation Transmission Without Benefit To The Reporter: A Behavioral Underpinning Of Markets In Experimental Focus," Economic Inquiry, Western Economic Association International, vol. 56(1), pages 158-172, January.
    13. Ivan Balbuzanov & Maciej H. Kotowski, 2019. "Endowments, Exclusion, and Exchange," Econometrica, Econometric Society, vol. 87(5), pages 1663-1692, September.
    14. Mark Schneider & Mikhael Shor, 2016. "The Common Ratio Effect in Choice, Pricing, and Happiness Tasks," Working papers 2016-29, University of Connecticut, Department of Economics.
    15. Cinzia Battistella & Gianluca Murgia & Fabio Nonino, 2021. "Free-driven web-based business models," Electronic Commerce Research, Springer, vol. 21(2), pages 445-486, June.
    16. Li, Mengling & Riyanto, Yohanes E. & Xu, Menghan, 2023. "Prioritized organ allocation rules under compatibility constraints," Games and Economic Behavior, Elsevier, vol. 141(C), pages 403-427.
    17. Dixit, Aasheesh & Jakhar, Suresh Kumar, 2021. "Airport capacity management: A review and bibliometric analysis," Journal of Air Transport Management, Elsevier, vol. 91(C).
    18. Kanbur, Ravi & Fleurbaey, Marc & Viney, Brody, 2020. "Social Externalities and Economic Analysis," CEPR Discussion Papers 15179, C.E.P.R. Discussion Papers.
    19. Richard A. Epstein, 2008. "The Human and Economic Dimensions of Altruism: The Case of Organ Transplantation," The Journal of Legal Studies, University of Chicago Press, vol. 37(2), pages 459-501, June.
    20. Victor M. Bennett & Robert Seamans & Feng Zhu, 2015. "Cannibalization and option value effects of secondary markets: Evidence from the US concert industry," Strategic Management Journal, Wiley Blackwell, vol. 36(11), pages 1599-1614, November.

    More about this item

    JEL classification:

    • L11 - Industrial Organization - - Market Structure, Firm Strategy, and Market Performance - - - Production, Pricing, and Market Structure; Size Distribution of Firms
    • L86 - Industrial Organization - - Industry Studies: Services - - - Information and Internet Services; Computer Software

    Statistics

    Access and download statistics

    Corrections

    All material on this site has been provided by the respective publishers and authors. You can help correct errors and omissions. When requesting a correction, please mention this item's handle: RePEc:aea:jecper:v:23:y:2009:i:3:p:21-36. See general information about how to correct material in RePEc.

    If you have authored this item and are not yet registered with RePEc, we encourage you to do it here. This allows to link your profile to this item. It also allows you to accept potential citations to this item that we are uncertain about.

    If CitEc recognized a bibliographic reference but did not link an item in RePEc to it, you can help with this form .

    If you know of missing items citing this one, you can help us creating those links by adding the relevant references in the same way as above, for each refering item. If you are a registered author of this item, you may also want to check the "citations" tab in your RePEc Author Service profile, as there may be some citations waiting for confirmation.

    For technical questions regarding this item, or to correct its authors, title, abstract, bibliographic or download information, contact: Michael P. Albert (email available below). General contact details of provider: https://edirc.repec.org/data/aeaaaea.html .

    Please note that corrections may take a couple of weeks to filter through the various RePEc services.

    IDEAS is a RePEc service. RePEc uses bibliographic data supplied by the respective publishers.