探討免費產品對於資訊產品商業模式之影響

Abstract

在軟體產業中，許多低品質的公司常提供免費產品和高品質的公司競爭。因此，在本篇論文中，我們提出一個雙頭寡占模型，探討一個低品質公司與一個高品質公司之間的競爭關係，其中，高品質公司採用收費模式，而低品質公司可以選擇不同的商業模式：廣告支持模式、收費模式或雙重模式。我們同時考慮口碑效應的影響，並探討影響低品質公司決策的因素。分析結果顯示，當廣告轉換的收益強，且廣告對消費者帶來的損益適中時，低品質公司將採用廣告支持模式；當廣告轉換的收益弱且廣告對消費者帶來的損益高時，低品質公司將採用雙重模式；否則，低品質公司將採用收費模式。此外，唯有採用雙重模式時，低品質公司的需求會隨著口碑效應而上升，且存在一個柏拉圖改善區間，對兩方都有利。

Low-quality firms often offer free products to compete with high-quality firms in software industry. Therefore, in this thesis, we propose a game-theoretical model to study the competition between a high-quality firm adopting a fee-based model and a low-quality firm adopting an ad-sponsored model, a fee-based model or a dual model. Also, we consider the Word-Of-Mouth (WOM) effect and the factors affecting low-quality firm’s decision. Our analysis shows that the low-quality firm adopts the ad-sponsored model when the level of revenue derived from advertisements is high and the level of advertising disutility is moderate, and the dual model when the level of revenue derived from advertisements is low and the level of advertising disutility is large, and the fee-based model otherwise. In addition, the demand of low-quality firm increases with the WOM effect only when it adopts the dual model. Furthermore, when the low-quality firm adopts the dual model, there exists a Pareto improvement zone in which both high-quality and low-quality firms earn more profit.