Content‐Hosting Platforms: Discovery, Membership, Or Both?

ABSTRACT Our model classifies platforms in the “creator economy” —for example, Youtube, Patreon, and Twitch—into three business models: pure discovery (helping consumers search for creators); pure membership (enabling direct creator–consumer monetization); and hybrid (combining both). Creators respond to platforms' decisions by choosing their content design along a broad‐niche spectrum, trading off between viewership size and per‐viewer monetization. With a monopoly platform, moving from pure discovery to hybrid increases profit while inducing a more niche content design; moving from pure membership to hybrid can reduce platform profit while inducing a broader content design. We show how intense platform competition reverses these trade‐offs.