上海大学学报(社会科学版) ›› 2024, Vol. 41 ›› Issue (3): 124-140.

• • 上一篇    

平台企业“免费盈利”模式演变及其资源配置原理

  

  1. 惠佩瑶.中共绍兴市委党校经济学教研室;

    胡晓鹏.上海社会科学院世界经济研究所

  • 出版日期:2024-05-15 发布日期:2024-05-20
  • 作者简介:惠佩瑶(1993- ),女,甘肃庆阳人。中共绍兴市委党校经济学教研室讲师、经济学博士。研究方向:数字经济理论与实践。 胡晓鹏(1975- ),男,河南开封人。上海社会科学院世界经济研究所副所长、研究员、博士生导师。研究方向:数字经济理论与实践。
  • 基金资助:
    浙江省哲学社会科学规划一般(青年)项目(23NDJC382YB)

Evolution of the“Free-Profit”Model of Platform Enterprises and Its Resource Allocation Principles

  1. HUI Peiyao.The Party School of the CPC Shaoxing Municipal Committee;

    HU Xiaopeng. Institute of World Economy, Shanghai Academy of Social Sciences

  • Online:2024-05-15 Published:2024-05-20

摘要:

以“淘宝系”为代表的平台企业通过持续创新探索,形成与传统企业大相径庭的独特商业模式,尤其是基于免费定价策略的盈利模式不断演变,成就了平台企业跨界转变的汹涌浪潮。既有研究主要以双边用户非对称定价来解释平台企业免费向用户提供技术服务的现象,但该理论无法涵盖平台企业同时对买卖双方免费的情境,且忽视了“市价为零时,技术服务市场的稀缺资源如何配置?”这一重要问题。可从资源配置视角出发,重新研究平台企业“免费盈利”模式,通过研究其发展演变过程,发现“以服务换流量,再通过流量资源获利”是平台企业通过服务升级、版本分层、跨界协同等模式实现“免费盈利”的共性逻辑;通过对其内在的价值创造过程进行理论解,发现因用户流量资源集聚所形成的市场交易的总量扩张效应、结构优化效应和效率提升效应是平台企业的盈利来源;通过对免费技术服务市场的供需决策过程进行理论剖析,发现平台企业技术服务市场的稀缺资源配置是由用户流量与数据来驱动。相较于传统市场价格机制,以需求为中心的供给优化已取代以价格为中心的供需相互调整,这是一种更为高效的资源配置方式。政府部门应当转变传统价格中心范式的市场监管思路,探索适用于平台企业“免费盈利”模式的新型监管方式,通过规范平台企业流量竞争行为,建立健全数据交易市场体系,进一步释放数字经济领域资源配置的效率潜力。

关键词: “免费盈利”, 资源配置, 平台企业, 流量资源, 用户数据

Abstract:

Platform companies, represented by“Taobao,”have formed a unique business model that is vastly different from traditional enterprises through continuous innovation and exploration, especially the evolving profit model based on a free pricing strategy, which has led to a surging wave of cross-border transformation of platform companies. Existing research mainly explains in the perspective of asymmetric pricing for two-sided users why platform companies provide technical services to users for free, but fails to explain why platform companies offer services to both buyers and sellers for free, and ignores the important question that“how are scarce resources in the technology service market allocated when the market price is zero?”This paper revisits the“free-profit”model of platform companies from the perspective of resource allocation. By studying their development and evolution process, it is found that“exchanging services for traffic, and then profiting from traffic resources" is the common logic for platform companies to achieve“free-profit ” through service upgrades, version stratification, and cross-border collaboration. By theoretically deconstructing the internal value creation process, it is discovered that the effects of total expansion, structural optimization, and efficiency enhancement effect of market transactions formed by the aggregation of user traffic resources are the profit sources for platform companies. By theoretically analyzing the supply and demand decision-making process in the free technology service market, it is found that the allocation of  scarce resources in the platform companies’technology service market is driven by user traffic and data; and compared with the traditional market price mechanism, a demand-centered supply optimization, as a more efficient way of resource allocation, has replaced price-centered supply and demand mutual adjustments. Government departments should change the traditional price-centered paradigm of market regulation, explore new types of regulatory methods suitable for the“free-profit”model of platform companies, regulate the traffic competition between platform companies, and establish and improve the data trading market system so as to further unleash the efficiency potential of resource allocation in the field of digital economy.

Key words: “free-Profit”, resource allocation, platform enterprises, traffic resources, user data

中图分类号: