This paper introduces strategic agents into a two-sided market. We model strategic agents as advertisers who can invest in ad quality, which in turn affects readers, platforms and themselves. When platforms can choose prices on both the reader side and the advertiser side, strategic agents intensify competition, leading to lower prices and profits for the platforms. However, when prices on the reader side are restricted to be zero, equilibrium prices on the advertiser side can be higher or lower under strategic agents. We also investigate the interplay between strategic agents and platform asymmetry, and analyze platforms’ incentive to invest in content quality. Our results suggest that strategic agents increase the degree of platform asymmetry and make it harder for the disadvantaged platform to compete. However, strategic agents may raise or lower platforms’ incentive to invest in content quality.

本文将战略代理引入双边市场。我们将战略代理商塑造为可以投资于广告质量的广告商，这反过来又会影响读者、平台和他们自己。当平台可以在读者端和广告主端选择价格时，战略代理商会加剧竞争，从而导致平台的价格和利润降低。然而，当读者端的价格被限制为零时，在战略代理下，广告商端的均衡价格可以更高或更低。我们还调查了战略代理人和平台不对称之间的相互作用，并分析了平台投资内容质量的动机。我们的结果表明，战略代理人增加了平台的不对称程度，并使处于劣势的平台更难竞争。然而，