Competing by Restricting Choice: The Case of Search Platforms

Management Science, Aug 2018, Vol. 64 No.8, Pages 3574-3594

Harvard Business School Strategy Unit Working Paper No. 10-098

45 Pages Posted: 18 May 2010 Last revised: 11 Jun 2019

See all articles by Hanna Halaburda

Hanna Halaburda

New York University (NYU) - Leonard N. Stern School of Business

Mikolaj Jan Piskorski

IMD

Pinar Yildirim

University of Pennsylvania - The Wharton School; University of Pennsylvania - Department of Economics; National Bureau of Economic Research (NBER)

Date Written: July 17, 2016

Abstract

We show that a two-sided platform can successfully compete by limiting the choice of potential matches it offers to its customers while charging higher prices than platforms with unrestricted choice. Starting from micro-foundations, we derive the strength and direction of network effect, and find that increasing the number of potential matches not only has a positive effect due to larger choice, but also a negative effect due to competition between agents on the same side. Agents with heterogeneous outside options resolve the trade-off between the two effects differently. For agents with a lower outside option, the competitive effect is stronger than the choice effect. Hence, these agents have higher willingness to pay for a platform restricting choice. Agents with a higher outside option prefer a platform offering unrestricted choice. Therefore, the two platforms may coexist without the market tipping. Our model may help explain why platforms with different business models coexist in markets using the stylized model of online dating.

Keywords: matching platform, indirect network effects, limits to network effects

JEL Classification: C7, D8

Suggested Citation

Halaburda, Hanna and Piskorski, Mikolaj Jan and Yildirim, Pinar, Competing by Restricting Choice: The Case of Search Platforms (July 17, 2016). Management Science, Aug 2018, Vol. 64 No.8, Pages 3574-3594, Harvard Business School Strategy Unit Working Paper No. 10-098, Available at SSRN: https://ssrn.com/abstract=1610187 or http://dx.doi.org/10.2139/ssrn.1610187

Hanna Halaburda (Contact Author)

New York University (NYU) - Leonard N. Stern School of Business ( email )

44 West 4th Street
New York, NY NY 10012
United States

Mikolaj Jan Piskorski

IMD ( email )

Ch. de Bellerive 23
P.O. Box 915
CH-1001 Lausanne
Switzerland

Pinar Yildirim

University of Pennsylvania - The Wharton School ( email )

3641 Locust Walk
Philadelphia, PA 19104-6365
United States

University of Pennsylvania - Department of Economics

National Bureau of Economic Research (NBER)

1050 Massachusetts Avenue
Cambridge, MA 02138
United States

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