Will You “Dashang”? Effects of Social Signals in Online Pay-What-You-Want

Dashang, as a new form of the pay-what-you-want (PWYW) pricing paradigm, has emerged on social media platforms, especially in China. In the settings of Dashang, consumers are free to pay any amount to the authors or broadcasters after they have consumed some information goods. Compared with traditional offline scenes, Dashang has incorporated more social elements and platform engagements. However, it remains unelucidated what are the critical factors that motivate users to pay. In this paper, we investigate whether and how social signals, such as the disclosed information about the volume of paid people, may influence consumers’ willingness to pay under Dashang. An ambivalent framework is proposed, suggesting that such social signals may have both positive and negative effects on voluntary payment. The manuscript is to present the theoretical development of the research, aiming to reveal the benefits and liabilities of the social signal disclosure mechanism

The Freemium Effect: Why Consumers Perceive More Value with Free than with Premium Offers

Continuous evolution of digital technology not only changes the way people communicate, it also fundamentally alters how companies generate revenue. Services like Dropbox, Skype, LinkedIn or Spotify successfully implement the freemium business model of concurrent free and priced premium versions. This paper will investigate the consequences of offering basic features for free. Based on research complementing the relationship between quality and price, the following provides evidence for an inversed “freemium” effect. Free services provide more value than premium services, not less. Results from a set of experimental studies show that consumers perceive fewer sacrifices and more benefits with free rather than premium offers. Consequently, decision-making variables (value, intention, and willingness to pay) favor the free versions. Implications for practice and research are provided building upon these results

An Empirical Examination of the Antecedents and Consequences of Investment Patterns in Crowd-Funded Markets.

Crowd-funded markets have recently emerged as a novel source of capital for entrepreneurs. As the economic potential of these markets is now being realized, they are beginning to go mainstream, a trend reflected by the explicit attention crowdfunding has received in the American Jobs Act as a potential avenue for economic growth, as well as the recent focus that regulators such as the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission have placed upon it. Although the formulation of regulation and policy surrounding crowd-funded markets is becoming increasingly important, the behavior of crowdfunders, an important aspect that must be considered in this formulation effort, is not yet well understood. A key factor that can influence the behavior of crowd funders is information on prior contribution behavior, including the amount and timing of others\u27 contributions, which is published for general consumption. With that in mind, in this study, we empirically examine social influence in a crowd-funded marketplace for online journalism projects, employing a unique data set that incorporates contribution events and Web traffic statistics for approximately 100 story pitches. This data set allows us to examine both the antecedents and consequences of the contribution process. First, noting that digital journalism is a form of public good, we evaluate the applicability of two competing classes of economic models that explain private contribution toward public goods in the presence of social information: substitution models and reinforcement models. We also propose a new measure that captures both the amount and the timing of others\u27 contribution behavior: contribution frequency (dollars per unit time). We find evidence in support of a substitution model, which suggests a partial crowding-out effect, where contributors may experience a decrease in their marginal utility from making a contribution as it becomes less important to the recipient. Further, we find that the duration of funding and, more importantly, the degree of exposure that a pitch receives over the course of the funding process, are positively associated with readership upon the story\u27s publication. This appears to validate the widely held belief that a key benefit of the crowdfunding model is the potential it offers for awareness and attention-building around causes and ventures. This last aspect is a major contribution of the study, as it demonstrates a clear linkage between marketing effort and the success of crowd-funded projects

Addressing Deficits: How Crowdfunded Journalists Find Success in a Restructuring Media Industry

This thesis examines crowdfunded journalists’ beliefs about the most effective ways to appeal to potential financial supporters and successfully meet their funding goals. In the wake of continually worsening economic restructuring in the journalism industry and the disruption of journalism’s perennial advertising-based business model (Anderson, Shirky, & Bell, 2014; Kaye & Quinn, 2010), crowdfunding has emerged over the last decade as a possible alternative business model (Hunter, 2016). The financial crisis has resulted in cutbacks in coverage and staff, and an erosion of journalism’s societal role as the fourth estate (Gasher et al., 2016; McChesney & Pickard, 2011; Mensing, 2007; Picard, 2014; Public Policy Forum, 2017). The existing literature on what motivates people to support crowdfunded journalism has looked at the question primarily from supporters’ point of view (Aitamurto, 2011; Jian & Shin. 2015). However, there has been little research on what crowdfunded journalists themselves think are the best ways to motivate or appeal to potential financial supporters. Using in-depth, semi-structured interviews (as per Castillo-Montoya, 2016 and Leech, 2002) with 10 Canadian journalists who have engaged in crowdfunding for new media outlets, this thesis examines key value propositions the journalists use to motivate their audiences, the general obstacles they face when convincing their audience to pay, as well as promotional techniques and other related practices that contribute to successfully reaching their funding goals. The interviews were analyzed thematically (as per Guest, MacQueen, & Namey, 2012) using a constant comparative method and open coding to track emerging themes. The results show that respondents are crafting value propositions by alluding to deficits created by industry restructuring, and the negative impact this restructuring has on democratic society