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Platforms, Power, and Promotion: Evidence from Spotify Playlists

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  • Luis Aguiar
  • Joel Waldfogel

Abstract

Many online markets are dominated by a handful of platforms, raising concerns about the exercise of market power in the digital age. Spotify has emerged as the leading interactive music streaming platform, and we assess its power by measuring the impact of its promotion decisions – via platform‐operated playlists – on the success of songs and artists. We employ discontinuity and instrumental variables identification approaches and find large and significant effects of playlist inclusion on success. Our results provide direct evidence of a prominent platform's power and suggest a need for continued scrutiny of how platforms exercise their power.

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  • Luis Aguiar & Joel Waldfogel, 2021. "Platforms, Power, and Promotion: Evidence from Spotify Playlists," Journal of Industrial Economics, Wiley Blackwell, vol. 69(3), pages 653-691, September.
    • Handle: RePEc:bla:jindec:v:69:y:2021:i:3:p:653-691
    DOI: 10.1111/joie.12263
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    Cited by:

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    2. Gustavo Berganti~nos & Juan D. Moreno-Ternero, 2023. "Revenue sharing at music streaming platforms," Papers 2310.11861, arXiv.org.
    3. Yanhui Wu & Feng Zhu, 2022. "Competition, Contracts, and Creativity: Evidence from Novel Writing in a Platform Market," Management Science, INFORMS, vol. 68(12), pages 8613-8634, December.
    4. Janek Meyn & Michael Kandziora & Sönke Albers & Michel Clement, 2023. "Consequences of platforms' remuneration models for digital content: initial evidence and a research agenda for streaming services," Journal of the Academy of Marketing Science, Springer, vol. 51(1), pages 114-131, January.
    5. Johannes Loh, 2022. "Selection, Consumption, and New Music Exploration in an Online Social Network: A Dyadic Approach," CESifo Working Paper Series 10120, CESifo.
    6. Lukas Jurgensmeier & Bernd Skiera, 2023. "Measuring Self-Preferencing on Digital Platforms," Papers 2303.14947, arXiv.org, revised Feb 2024.
    7. Gambato, Jacopo & Sandrini, Luca, 2023. "Not as good as it used to be: Do streaming platforms penalize quality?," ZEW Discussion Papers 23-032, ZEW - Leibniz Centre for European Economic Research.
    8. Martin Peitz, 2023. "Governance and Regulation of Platforms," CRC TR 224 Discussion Paper Series crctr224_2023_480, University of Bonn and University of Mannheim, Germany.
    9. Shiva Agarwal & Cameron D. Miller & Martin Ganco, 2023. "Growing platforms within platforms: How platforms manage the adoption of complementor products in the presence of network effects?," Strategic Management Journal, Wiley Blackwell, vol. 44(8), pages 1879-1910, August.
    10. Yujun Park & Seongcheol Kim, 2024. "Do artists perceive blockchain as a new revenue opportunity? A social representation study of the Korean music industry," Palgrave Communications, Palgrave Macmillan, vol. 11(1), pages 1-11, December.

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