The Governance Mechanism And Competitive Strategy Of Internet Content Platforms

As important support of the digital content market,Internet content platform has attracted more and more attention from industry and academia.Different from traditional media enterprises,Internet content platform has distinctive characteristics of the times and economic characteristics,which are embodied in the popularization of content production,the openness of information access,the experience of consumption pattern,and the networking of communication channels.These make the Internet content platform develop rapidly in the short term,and gradually replace the dominant position of traditional content providers.However,with the rapid expansion,the Internet content platform is also facing the dual dilemma of content ecological governance and fierce market competition.On the one hand,in different stages of internal content ecological construction,the different characteristics of user behavior lead to diversified governance needs;On the other hand,in the external market competition under the free situation,the differentiated business value and behavior mode of users leads to the complex competition logic.How to combine the characteristics of the Internet content platform with the characteristics of user behavior,to effectively solve the governance problems in the process of content ecological construction,and provide theoretical support for the platform to formulate appropriate competitive strategies,is one of the hotspots of current academic research.This paper first considers the internal governance mechanism of Internet content platforms when there is no market competition.According to the governance needs of the platform in different stages of content ecological construction,the governance mechanism of the platform can be divided into four aspects: user incentive in the content production stage,infringement supervision in the content supervision stage,and community operation in the content monetization stage.Combined with the behavior characteristics of platform users,this paper discusses the optimal governance mechanism of the platform in different stages.Secondly,consider the external competition strategy of Internet content platforms when there is market competition.Combined with the user’s producer and consumer attributes and the user competition goal of the platform,this paper discusses the optimal competition strategy of the platform in the free-price situation.The specific analysis and results are as follows:Aiming at the "positive externality" of users’ unpaid contribution behavior in the content production stage,an incentive mechanism based on market transaction mechanism,namely "market-oriented economic incentive",is proposed,and the impact of market-oriented economic incentive on users’ unpaid contribution is empirically tested.The study found the spillover effect of the economic incentive,specifically: in the mixed contribution situation,the market-oriented economic incentive can significantly promote the free contribution behavior of users.This indirect economic reward will not squeeze out the internal motivation of users’ free contribution,but also provide the external motivation of users’ free contribution.Compared with non-rewarded users,the quantity and quality of content contributed by rewarded users are significantly improved.Further mechanism tests show that signaling and advertising are the potential mechanisms behind the "spillover" of user contribution behavior.The economic rewards obtained from paid contribution activities can encourage users to more actively participate in free contribution,to transmit their ability signal and improve their awareness among the public,to exchange more future benefits.Aiming at the "asymmetric externality" of users’ unauthorized sharing behavior in the content supervision stage,this paper puts forward the "platform single supervision" based on nudge and the "multi-party collaborative supervision" based on users reports,constructs a mathematical model to analyze the governance efficiency and influencing factors of different supervision mechanisms.The model analysis found that: in the absence of supervision,the existence of unauthorized sharing may lead to the coexistence of the increase of the total amount of content sharing and the decline of social welfare.After the introduction of single supervision of the platform,the sum of the scale of users,the total amount of content,and infringement losses of the platform decreased,and the decline increased with the increase of supervision.When the social welfare is large,the single supervision will reduce the social welfare,and the optimal supervision level is 0.This means that under a single regulatory mechanism,it is difficult for the platform to take into account the regulatory objectives of "user scale" and "social welfare".Compared with the case without supervision,after the introduction of multi-party collaborative supervision,when the proportion of high-ability users is high enough,the sum of infringement losses of the platform decreases,while the user scale,total content,and overall social welfare increase.Aiming at the "information asymmetry" of users’ content transaction behavior in the content monetization stage,this paper investigates a platform operation mechanism based on online community,and empirically discusses the impact of users’ community sharing behavior on their content monetization results under community empowerment.Empirical analysis shows that the online community provided by the platform is conducive to alleviating the trust crisis in the process of content trading.Specifically: the quality,diversity,and altruism of user community sharing have a positive impact on its social influence.The social influence of users in the online community has a significant role in promoting their content monetization results.The quality,diversity,and altruism of user community sharing are positively correlated with the content monetization outcomes,and the individual social influence plays a partial intermediary role.This paper confirms the importance of "community construction" and "socialization of consumer experience" in platform operation,and reveals the deep logic of the business model of influencer economy: active community sharing can promote users to change from simple sharers to influencers,and then use their identity as influencers to guide consumers to buy their paid contentAiming at the "prosumer characteristics" and "value heterogeneity" of users in the market competition,this paper puts forward a competitive strategy based on traffic distribution,constructs a duopoly competition model of Internet content platform,and deeply discusses the influencing factors of platform competition equilibrium results and the optimal competition strategy of the platform.The model analysis shows that: in the duopoly market structure,adopting the same traffic distribution strategy as the competitors is the best choice of the platform.If and only if the utility of sharing of all users is at a low level,the platform adopting a centralized distribution strategy will win in the differentiated competition;Otherwise,the platform adopting decentralized distribution strategy will win more super users.Further comparative static analysis results show that improving the level of subsidies is conducive to the platform of decentralized distribution strategy in most cases.However,when the super users’ utility of sharing is large enough and the general users’ utility of sharing is low enough,the excessive subsidy level will lead to the reduction of super users of decentralized platforms.The impact of technology empowerment on the competitive balance of the platform depends on the utility level of general users.