Physical products (e.g., cars, smartphones) increasingly evolve into dynamic service platforms that allow for customization through fee-based activation of restricted add-on features throughout their lifecycle. The authors refer to this emerging phenomenon as “internal product upgrades”. Drawing on normative expectations literature, this research examines pitfalls of internal product upgrades that marketers need to understand. Six experimental studies in two different contexts (consumer-electronics, automotive) reveal that consumers respond less favorably to internal (vs. external) product upgrades. The analyses show that customer-perceived betrayal, which results from increased feature ownership perceptions, drives the effects. Moreover, this research identifies three boundary conditions: it shows that the negative effects are attenuated when (1) the company (vs. consumer) executes the upgrading, and (2) consumers upgrade an intangible (vs. tangible) feature. Finally, consumers react less negatively when (3) the base product is less relevant to their self-identity.

实体产品（例如汽车、智能手机）越来越多地演变为动态服务平台，允许通过在其整个生命周期内通过收费激活受限附加功能来进行定制。作者将这种新兴现象称为“内部产品升级”。借鉴规范预期文献，本研究考察了营销人员需要了解的内部产品升级的缺陷。在两种不同环境（消费电子产品、汽车）中进行的六项实验研究表明，消费者对内部（相对于外部）产品升级的反应较差。分析表明，客户感知的背叛是由增加的功能所有权感知导致的，从而推动了这种影响。此外，本研究确定了三个边界条件：它表明，当（1）公司（相对于消费者）执行升级，以及（2）消费者升级无形（相对于有形）功能时，负面影响会减弱。最后，当 (3) 基础产品与他们的自我认同不太相关时，消费者的负面反应会减少。