E-Book Platform Competition in the Presence of Two-Sided Network Externalities

Abstract

The success of the Kindle e-book platform and the increased popularity of e-books among members of the reading community have attracted extensive interest in the high-tech industry. New platform providers are jumping in the market to compete for device and e-book sales. In this paper, we model the direct competition in the e-book platform market through a two-sided network externality model. We show that publishers can influence consumers' e-book platform adoption decisions and the total e-book sales by strategically deciding the size of contents available on each platform.