Understanding users' content contribution behavior when content can be priced

Abstract

Solving the content under-supply problem and maintaining the quality of content are two central challenges to all platforms today. These problems can be exacerbated in the area of knowledge sharing platforms, where UGC is not yet popular and users, in general, hold high expectations of content quality. It is believed that contribution could sustain when there is an economic interest associated with content production. Hence, a number of platforms have been experimenting with various mechanism design that creates economic incentives for content contributions. In this paper, we investigate whether and how economic benefits influence contributors’ knowledge contribution behavior. In particular, we empirically examine the shift in contribution behavior when contributors are provided with an option of pricing their knowledge contribution. Our empirical setting is Zhihu, a leading Chinese question-and-answer platform, where knowledge was provided for free by its users. In April 2016, Zhihu launched a program that allows participants to price their knowledge and to decide the proportion of priced knowledge and free knowledge. Using a difference-in-differences approach, we find that participants’ quantity of free content contribution increases after the program takes effect but the quality decreases. The effects are more pronounced for participants with higher involvement in delivering priced content. We also find that the closer to the launch of the priced content, the significant the effects are.

Date of Award	2018
Original language	English
Awarding Institution	The Hong Kong University of Science and Technology