The Economic and Social Consequences of Digital Platforms: A Systematic and Interdisciplinary Literature Review

Abstract

AbstractTo monetize digital technologies, many firms use platform-based business models. While such digital platforms can yield tremendous profits, they also pose new challenges, among them privacy, harmful content such as hate speech, cyberbullying, or discrimination, as well as competition and innovation. These challenges have seen an uptick in research interest in the past years yet lack a structured and holistic overview. To resolve, this chapter reports a structured and interdisciplinary literature review. We document open research questions and outline mutual dependencies between the topics under consideration.