Abstract
We study the pros and cons of the “fair cost sharing” proposal, which entitles the charging of a fraction of the traffic cost incurred by an access Internet Service Provider (ISP) to the Content Providers (CPs) that deliver content to the access ISP users. This study is conducted in a scenario where CPs host their content in a platform and where the platform operates two-sided pricing for the intermediation between CPs and users. Our hypotheses is that this two-sided pricing interacts in a relevant manner with the access ISP, which can only price the user side. We conclude that a cost sharing regulation, when complete pass-through is executed by a content aggregating platform, does not improve the ISP’s profit and does not preclude the platform from obtaining profits either. Furthermore, we found that the value that the platform eventually captures is the value that the ISP would capture if the platform was absent.
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
References
Armstrong, M.: Competition in two-sided markets. Rand J. Econ. 37(3), 668–691 (2006)
Belleflamme, P., Peitz, M.: The Economics of Platforms. Cambridge University Press, Cambridge (2021)
Economides, N., Tåg, J.: Network neutrality on the internet: a two-sided market analysis. Inf. Econ. Policy 24(2), 91–104 (2012)
Jullien, B., Bouvard, M.: Fair cost sharing: big tech vs telcos. TSE Working Paper, n. 22-1376 (2022)
Rochet, J.C., Tirole, J.: Two-sided markets: a progress report. Rand J. Econ. 37(3), 645–667 (2006)
Stocker, V., Lehr, W.: Regulatory policy for broadband: A response to the ETNO report’s proposal for intervention in Europe’s internet ecosystem (2022). Available at SSRN 4263096
Acknowledgement
This work has been conducted during a research stay in Summer 2023 at the Weizenbaum Institut, Berlin, Germany, hosted by the Research Group Digital Economy, Internet, Ecosystems and Internet Policy thanks to Dr. Stocker’s invitation. Financial support is acknowledged from Grant PID2021-123168NB-I00, funded by MCIN/AEI, Spain/10.13039/ 501100011033 and the European Union A way of making Europe/ERDF and Grant TED2021-131387B-I00, funded by MCIN/AEI, Spain/ 10.13039/501100011033 and the European Union NextGenerationEU/ RTRP.
Author information
Authors and Affiliations
Corresponding author
Editor information
Editors and Affiliations
Ethics declarations
Disclosure of Interests
The authors have no competing interests to declare that are relevant to the content of this article.
Rights and permissions
Copyright information
© 2025 The Author(s), under exclusive license to Springer Nature Switzerland AG
About this paper
Cite this paper
Guijarro, L., Vidal, J.R., Pla, V. (2025). Fair Cost Sharing Under Platform Two-Sided Intermediation. In: Le Cadre, H., Hayel, Y., Tuffin, B., Chahed, T. (eds) Network Games, Artificial Intelligence, Control and Optimization. NETGCOOP 2024. Lecture Notes in Computer Science, vol 15185. Springer, Cham. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-031-78600-6_9
Download citation
DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-031-78600-6_9
Published:
Publisher Name: Springer, Cham
Print ISBN: 978-3-031-78599-3
Online ISBN: 978-3-031-78600-6
eBook Packages: Computer ScienceComputer Science (R0)