We challenge the dichotomy of network effects and highlight that they are not an exogenous characteristic of networks, but endogenous to the decisions of network users. When users choose which activities to perform in a network, multi-activity users transform indirect into direct network effects and a network effectively becomes one-sided if merely multi-activity users frequent it. Our work contributes to theory by determining the underlying primitives that produce what the literature calls a two-sided market and by highlighting how the standard two-sided pricing results are indeed optimal only under very specific conditions. Our work also reveals that platform design choices that impact multi-activity, potentially to over come the chicken-and-egg problem, will also impact optimal pricing.

中文翻译：

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多边用户的最佳平台定价：直接和间接网络方法


我们挑战了网络效应的二分法，并强调它们不是网络的外生特征，而是网络用户决策的内生性。当用户选择要在网络中执行的活动时，多活动用户会将间接网络效应转化为直接网络效应，如果只是多活动用户频繁使用，则网络实际上会变得片面。我们的工作通过确定产生文献中所谓的双边市场的基本原语，并强调标准的双边定价结果只有在非常特定的条件下才确实是最优的，从而为理论做出贡献。我们的工作还表明，影响多活动的平台设计选择，可能会克服先有鸡还是先有蛋的问题，也会影响最佳定价。