Classroom Companion: Business

Definition 17.4 Search Good and Experience Good
Search good is a good with attributes or qualities that can be evaluated before con-
sumption. Experience good is good with attributes and qualities that can only be 
evaluated after consumption.
When content is produced in-house, as explained in 
7
Chap. 
7
, the content pro-
vider producing it is a professional company. One example is the film industry, 
which requires huge budgets and a professionalized mode of operation when mak-
ing a movie. On the other hand, when content is produced by crowdsourcing or 
peer production, the content provider (CP) and the consumer (C) may be the same 
entity, called a prosumer.
Definition 17.5 Prosumer
Prosumer can be defined as “individuals who consume and produce value, either for 
self-consumption or consumption by others, and can receive implicit or explicit 
17.5 · Information Service Markets

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incentives from organizations involved in the exchange” (Lang et al., 
2020
). In the 
digital economy, this definition may be limited to encompass organizations where 
individuals may both produce content for other individuals and consume content 
produced by other individuals.
This is illustrated in 
.
Fig. 
17.9
. There are several business models available for the 
ASP:
5
The ASP may buy copyrighted content from the prosumer and sell it back to 
the prosumer.
5
The prosumer may give content for free to the ASP, and the ASP may offer the 
content to the prosumer either for free or for a certain fee.
5
The ASP may charge the prosumers for using the mediation service, either as 
producer, consumer, or both.
A prosumer may either only produce content, only consume content, or both. The 
ASP considers the groups of consumers and producers as a single stakeholder. 
YouTube is an example of a company connecting prosumers.