Managing platform ecosystems requires providers to govern the permeability of platform boundaries in order to strike a balance between openness and control. But is it worthwhile for platform providers to conduct screening processes for third-party offerings, or should they rather apply a laissez-faire approach and let the market determine winners and losers? In this study, we compare the market conditions on Kickstarter, one of the world’s largest crowdfunding platforms, before and after a policy change that relaxed the previously stringent screening process for new campaigns. By analyzing over 230,000 crowdfunding campaigns with a combined funding of over $1.9 billion that cover a 4-year period around the policy change, we find that increasing platform openness was a double-edged sword for the platform’s ecosystem. While Kickstarter’s revenue from commissions surged after the policy change due to an increase in the number of campaigns available on the platform, funding conditions for project creators and backers deteriorated. Project creators have to cope with lower success rates and an intensified competition due to a growing disproportion of backers to campaigns, while backers face higher uncertainties as project creators invest less in reducing information asymmetries. Our evidence from this natural experiment therefore suggests that increasing platform openness for third-party offerings can destabilize a platform’s ecosystem. We thus extend the literature on platform openness and on the implications of policy changes on platform ecosystems. Our findings also provide practical insights for different platform stakeholders into possible “ripple effects” that are triggered when policy changes alter platform openness.

中文翻译：

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打开闸门：增加众筹平台开放度的影响

管理平台生态系统需要提供商管理平台边界的渗透性，以在开放性和控制之间取得平衡。但是，平台提供商是否值得对第三方产品进行筛选，还是应该采取自由放任的方法，让市场决定赢家和输家？在这项研究中，我们比较了 Kickstarter（全球最大的众筹平台之一）在政策改变之前和之后的市场状况，该政策改变了之前对新活动的严格筛选流程。通过分析超过 230,000 次众筹活动，总资金超过 19 亿美元，涵盖政策变化前后的 4 年期间，我们发现提高平台开放性对于平台生态系统来说是一把双刃剑。尽管由于平台上可用的活动数量增加，政策变化后 Kickstarter 的佣金收入激增，但项目创建者和支持者的融资条件恶化。由于支持者与竞选活动的比例越来越不成比例，项目创建者必须应对较低的成功率和激烈的竞争，而由于项目创建者在减少信息不对称方面的投资较少，支持者面临更高的不确定性。因此，我们从这个自然实验中得到的证据表明，增加平台对第三方产品的开放性会破坏平台生态系统的稳定。因此，我们扩展了关于平台开放性和政策变化对平台生态系统影响的文献。