ABSTRACT In a freemium business model, the pricing of virtual goods with conspicuous features is a key challenge, because firms face a trade-off between increasing the total installed base and maintaining scarcity. In this study, we establish a model to facilitate this trade-off by considering a reference-based utility shift related to conspicuous consumption, and we offer the optimal pricing strategy for a monopoly firm, given different levels of snobbery. In addition, we provide guidelines for the firm on the conditions of introducing a freemium model. Our results reveal that the firm earns a growing profit by ratcheting up the premium price as the intensity of snobbery increases beyond a certain threshold, and in mild configurations, the firm earns a higher profit if it increases value discrepancy between the free and premium versions. This study contributes to theories of pricing virtual goods and may help practitioners who sell virtual goods with conspicuous features.

中文翻译：

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免费增值模式中具有显着特征的虚拟商品的最优定价

摘要在免费增值商业模式中，具有显着特征的虚拟商品的定价是一个关键挑战，因为公司面临着增加总安装基数和保持稀缺性之间的权衡。在这项研究中，我们通过考虑与炫耀性消费相关的基于参考的效用转移来建立一个模型来促进这种权衡，并且我们为垄断企业提供了最优定价策略，考虑到不同程度的势利。此外，我们就引入免费增值模式的条件为公司提供指导。我们的结果表明，随着势利的强度增加超过某个阈值，公司通过提高溢价来赚取不断增长的利润，并且在温和的配置中，如果增加免费和溢价版本之间的价值差异，公司将获得更高的利润。