Abstract
This chapter examines the evolution of users’ digital content consumption behavior over time. Our empirical analysis indicates a decreasing trend in users’ payment for digital content. We delve into the underlying mechanism and confirm the explanation of the substitution effect. We also explore the potential use of social influence to alleviate the decline in content payments and discover that social norms can serve as a tool to mitigate the decrease in digital content consumption over time, as users tend to increase their payments when they observe others making large payments.
This Chapter is derived, in part, from the article “Do long-life customers pay more in pay-what-you-want pricing? Evidence from live streaming” published in Journal of Business Research on January 22, 2022, available online: https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/abs/pii/S0148296322000431.
This is a preview of subscription content, log in via an institution to check access.
Access this chapter
Tax calculation will be finalised at checkout
Purchases are for personal use only
Notes
- 1.
- 2.
- 3.
- 4.
- 5.
- 6.
- 7.
- 8.
- 9.
- 10.
Watching behavior that lasts less than one minute is excluded in the analysis.
- 11.
To present the long-term dynamics of viewers’ behavior patterns, Fig. 8.3 focuses on viewers who were still active, i.e., ever watched live videos, during the last 30 days in the observational period.
- 12.
Our data are aggregated by day, and thus, a viewer’ multiple viewing sessions of the same broadcaster on the same day will be aggregated into one observation. Therefore, the variable WatchSession, measuring the number of live sessions watched by a viewer on a certain day, is actually the number of broadcasters watched by a viewer on a certain day. As a result, we think this variable can test for variety seeking.
References
Agerström, J., Carlsson, R., Nicklasson, L., & Guntell, L. (2016). Using descriptive social norms to increase charitable giving: The power of local norms. Journal of Economic Psychology, 52, 147–153. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.joep.2015.12.007
Alpizar, F., Carlsson, F., & Johansson-Stenman, O. (2008). Anonymity, reciprocity, and conformity: Evidence from voluntary contributions to a national park in Costa Rica. Journal of Public Economics, 92(5–6), 1047–1060. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.jpubeco.2007.11.004
Andreoni, J. (1989). Giving with impure altruism: Applications to charity and Ricardian equivalence. Journal of Political Economy, 97(6), 1447–1458.
Andreoni, J. (1990). Impure altruism and donations to public goods: A theory of warm-glow giving. The Economic Journal, 100(401), 464. https://doi.org/10.2307/2234133
Best, R. J. (2013). Market-based management: Strategies for growing customer value and profitability (6th ed). Pearson.
Burtch, G., Ghose, A., & Wattal, S. (2013). An empirical examination of the antecedents and consequences of contribution patterns in crowd-funded markets. Information Systems Research, 24(3), 499–519. https://doi.org/10.1287/isre.1120.0468
Chen, Y., Koenigsberg, O., & Zhang, Z. J. (2017). Pay-as-you-wish pricing. Marketing Science, 36(5), 780–791. https://doi.org/10.1287/mksc.2017.1032
Christopher, R. M., & Machado, F. S. (2019). Consumer response to design variations in pay-what-you-want pricing. Journal of the Academy of Marketing Science, 47(5), 879–898. https://doi.org/10.1007/s11747-019-00659-5
Cornelli, F. (1996). Optimal selling procedures with fixed costs. Journal of Economic Theory, 71(1), 1–30.
Dawes, J. G., Graham, C., & Trinh, G. (2021). The long-term erosion of repeat-purchase loyalty. European Journal of Marketing, 55(3), 763–789. https://doi.org/10.1108/EJM-01-2018-0042
Feinberg, F. M., Kahn, B. E., & McAlister, L. (1992). Market share response when consumers seek variety. Journal of Marketing Research, 29(2), 227. https://doi.org/10.2307/3172572
Feldhaus, C., Sobotta, T., & Werner, P. (2019). Norm uncertainty and voluntary payments in the field. Management Science, 65(4), 1855–1866. https://doi.org/10.1287/mnsc.2017.2937
Gautier, P. A., & van der Klaauw, B. (2012). Selection in a field experiment with voluntary participation. Journal of Applied Econometrics, 27(1), 63–84. https://doi.org/10.1002/jae.1184
Givon, M., & Horsky, D. (1990). Untangling the effects of purchase reinforcement and advertising carryover. Marketing Science, 9(2), 171–187. JSTOR.
Gneezy, A., Gneezy, U., Nelson, L. D., & Brown, A. (2010). Shared social responsibility: A field experiment in pay-what-you-want pricing and charitable giving. Science, 329(5989), 325–327. https://doi.org/10.1126/science.1186744
Gneezy, A., Gneezy, U., Riener, G., & Nelson, L. D. (2012). Pay-what-you-want, identity, and self-signaling in markets. Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, 109(19), 7236–7240. https://doi.org/10.1073/pnas.1120893109
Heckman, J. J. (1979). Sample selection bias as a specification error. Econometrica, 47(1), 153. https://doi.org/10.2307/1912352
Hüttel, B. A., Schumann, J. H., Mende, M., Scott, M. L., & Wagner, C. J. (2018). How consumers assess free e-services: The role of benefit-inflation and cost-deflation effects. Journal of Service Research, 21(3), 267–283. https://doi.org/10.1177/1094670517746779
Jang, H., & Chu, W. (2012). Are Consumers acting fairly toward companies?: An examination of pay-what-you-want pricing. Journal of Macromarketing, 32(4), 348–360. https://doi.org/10.1177/0276146712448193
Johnson, J. W., & Cui, A. P. (2013). To influence or not to influence: External reference price strategies in pay-what-you-want pricing. Thought Leadership in Brand Management II, 66(2), 275–281. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.jbusres.2012.09.015
Jung, M. H., Nelson, L. D., Gneezy, U., & Gneezy, A. (2017). Signaling virtue: Charitable behavior under consumer elective pricing. Marketing Science, 36(2), 187–194. https://doi.org/10.1287/mksc.2016.1018
Kim, J.-Y., Natter, M., & Spann, M. (2009). Pay what you want: A new participative pricing mechanism. Journal of Marketing, 73(1), 44–58. https://doi.org/10.1509/jmkg.73.1.044
Kunter, M. (2015). Exploring the Pay-What-You-Want payment motivation. Journal of Business Research, 68(11), 2347–2357. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.jbusres.2015.03.044
Lampel, J., & Bhalla, A. (2007). The Role of status seeking in online communities: Giving the gift of experience. Journal of Computer-Mediated Communication, 12(2), 434–455. https://doi.org/10.1111/j.1083-6101.2007.00332.x
Lee, J. E. (2019). Plausible versus implausible tensile price claim: Selective accessibility model approach: LEE. Psychology & Marketing, 36(1), 57–71. https://doi.org/10.1002/mar.21157
Levitt, S. D. (2006). White-collar crime writ small: A case study of bagels, donuts, and the honor system. The American Economic Review, 96(2), 290–294. JSTOR.
Li, R., Lu, Y., Ma, J., & Wang, W. (2021). Examining gifting behavior on live streaming platforms: An identity-based motivation model. Information & Management, 58(6), 103406. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.im.2020.103406
Lin, Y., Yao, D., & Chen, X. (2021). Happiness begets money: Emotion and engagement in live streaming. Journal of Marketing Research, 58(3), 417–438. https://doi.org/10.1177/00222437211002477
Lu, S., Yao, D., Chen, X., & Grewal, R. (2021). Do Larger audiences generate greater revenues under pay what you want? Evidence from a live streaming platform. Marketing Science, 40(5), 964–984. https://doi.org/10.1287/mksc.2021.1292
Machado, F. M., & Sinha, R. K. (2013). The viability of pay what you want pricing.
Mak, V., Zwick, R., Gary, A., Graduate, A., & Rao, A. (2010). “Pay what you want” as a profitable pricing strategy: Theory and experimental evidence. Working Paper.
Morgan, R. M., & Hunt, S. D. (1994). The commitment-trust theory of relationship marketing. Journal of Marketing, 58(3), 20. https://doi.org/10.2307/1252308
Natter, M., & Kaufmann, K. (2015). Voluntary market payments: Underlying motives, success drivers and success potentials. Journal of Behavioral and Experimental Economics, 57, 149–157. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.socec.2015.05.008
Niemand, T., Mai, R., & Kraus, S. (2019). The zero-price effect in freemium business models: The moderating effects of free mentality and price–quality inference. Psychology & Marketing, 36(8), 773–790. https://doi.org/10.1002/mar.21211
Prendergast, C., & Stole, L. (2001). The non-monetary nature of gifts. European Economic Review, 45(10), 1793–1810. https://doi.org/10.1016/S0014-2921(00)00102-1
Regner, T., & Barria, J. A. (2009). Do consumers pay voluntarily? The case of online music. Journal of Economic Behavior & Organization, 71(2), 395–406. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.jebo.2009.04.001
Riener, G., & Traxler, C. (2012). Norms, moods, and free lunch: Longitudinal evidence on payments from a Pay-What-You-Want restaurant. The Journal of Socio-Economics, 41(4), 476–483. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.socec.2011.07.003
Romano, R. E. (1991). When excessive consumption is rational. The American Economic Review, 81(3), 553–564. JSTOR.
Roy, R., Rabbanee, F. K., & Sharma, P. (2016). Exploring the interactions among external reference price, social visibility and purchase motivation in pay-what-you-want pricing. European Journal of Marketing, 50(5/6), 816–837. https://doi.org/10.1108/EJM-10-2014-0609
Roy, R., Sharma, P., Chan, R. Y. K., & Potdar, V. (2021). Exploring the role of spotlight effect in pay-what-you-want (PWYW) pricing—An anchoring and adjustment perspective. Psychology & Marketing, 38(5), 866–880. https://doi.org/10.1002/mar.21474
Schmidt, K. M., Spann, M., & Zeithammer, R. (2015). Pay what you want as a marketing strategy in monopolistic and competitive markets. Management Science, 61(6), 1217–1236. https://doi.org/10.1287/mnsc.2014.1946
Schons, L. M., Rese, M., Wieseke, J., Rasmussen, W., Weber, D., & Strotmann, W.-C. (2014). There is nothing permanent except change—Analyzing individual price dynamics in “pay-what-you-want” situations. Marketing Letters, 25(1), 25–36. https://doi.org/10.1007/s11002-013-9237-2
Shang, J., & Croson, R. (2009). A field experiment in charitable contribution: The impact of social information on the voluntary provision of public goods. The Economic Journal, 119(540), 1422–1439. https://doi.org/10.1111/j.1468-0297.2009.02267.x
Sharma, P., Roy, R., & Rabbanee, F. K. (2020). Interactive effects of situational and enduring involvement with perceived crowding and time pressure in pay-what-you-want (PWYW) pricing. Journal of Business Research, 109, 88–100. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.jbusres.2019.11.078
Soule, C. A. A., & Madrigal, R. (2015). Anchors and norms in anonymous pay-what-you-want pricing contexts. Journal of Behavioral and Experimental Economics, 57, 167–175. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.socec.2014.10.001
Stangl, B., Kastner, M., & Prayag, G. (2017). Pay-what-you-want for high-value priced services: Differences between potential, new, and repeat customers. Journal of Business Research, 74, 168–174. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.jbusres.2016.10.030
Umashankar, N., Bhagwat, Y., & Kumar, V. (2017). Do loyal customers really pay more for services? Journal of the Academy of Marketing Science, 45(6), 807–826. https://doi.org/10.1007/s11747-016-0491-8
Viglia, G., Maras, M., Schumann, J., & Navarro-Martinez, D. (2019). Paying before or paying after? Timing and uncertainty in pay-what-you-want pricing. Journal of Service Research, 22(3), 272–284. https://doi.org/10.1177/1094670519835308
Wang, C. X., Beck, J. T., & Yuan, H. (2021). The control-effort trade-off in participative pricing: How easing pricing decisions enhances purchase outcomes. Journal of Marketing, 85(5), 145–160. https://doi.org/10.1177/0022242921990351
Warren, N., Hanson, S., & Yuan, H. (2021). Feeling manipulated: How tip request sequence impacts customers and service providers? Journal of Service Research, 24(1), 66–83. https://doi.org/10.1177/1094670519900553
Author information
Authors and Affiliations
Rights and permissions
Copyright information
© 2023 The Author(s), under exclusive license to Springer Nature Singapore Pte Ltd.
About this chapter
Cite this chapter
Ma, X. (2023). Dynamics of Digital Content Consumption and Social Norm. In: Social Influence on Digital Content Contribution and Consumption. Management for Professionals. Springer, Singapore. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-981-99-6737-7_8
Download citation
DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/978-981-99-6737-7_8
Published:
Publisher Name: Springer, Singapore
Print ISBN: 978-981-99-6736-0
Online ISBN: 978-981-99-6737-7
eBook Packages: Business and ManagementBusiness and Management (R0)