Private markets for public goods: Pricing strategies of online database vendors

• 成果类型: Article
• 署名作者: West, LA Jr
• 署名单位: State University System of Florida; University of Central Florida
• 刊物名称: JOURNAL OF MANAGEMENT INFORMATION SYSTEMS
• ISSN/ISSBN: 0742-1222
• 发表日期: 2000
• 页码: 59-85
• 关键词: interview

摘要

The online database industry has annual sales of US$6.5 billion for a product that can be easily appropriated, duplicated, reused, and redistributed. This paper examines how the industry developed dynamic pricing and delivery strategies as a response to technological and market changes, and shows how each strategy specifically compensated for the public good properties of information. Readers will see that specific pricing strategies reduce the incentive to improperly reuse downloaded information. Thus, these strategies can lead to the sustainability and growth of the online database industry. These findings are then extended to the broader context of information delivery via the Internet.