Advanced service schemes for a self-interested information platform

This paper deals with platforms that bring together agents and opportunities of the type in which they are interested (e.g., eCommerce platforms, used car bulletins and dating web sites). It shows that the platform can benefit from not necessarily listing all of the opportunities that it can potentially list, even if there is no marginal cost for listing any additional opportunity. Two important implications of this result are discussed and demonstrated. The first is that the platform should take into account the option to disclose different subsets of opportunities, whenever setting its expected-profit-maximizing service fee. The second is that from the platform's users point of view, it might turn out to be more beneficial to pay for the platform's service rather than get it for free (e.g., when the service is sponsored by ads), as the costly case is characterized by more favorable listings.