Event type Hybrid Event
LocationRoom BZ E3.20 | Universitätsplatz 1 - piazza Università, 1
Bozen
Location Information
Departments ECO Faculty
Contact Sonia Candura
Sonia.Candura@unibz.it
Dynamic Competition in the Cloud: The Regulation of Egress Fees
In Andrea Mantovani’s research seminar, egress fees benefit providers but harm users: regulation helps yet banning them may reduce overall welfare.
Event type Hybrid Event
LocationRoom BZ E3.20 | Universitätsplatz 1 - piazza Università, 1
Bozen
Location Information
Departments ECO Faculty
Contact Sonia Candura
Sonia.Candura@unibz.it
As cloud computing continues to expand, it has drawn significant attention from policymakers due to concerns over market concentration and potentially controversial practices employed by dominant providers. In this paper, we examine the impact of egress fees, which are imposed on users when switching providers. Using a two-period horizontal differentiated duopoly model, we analyze their effects on firms and society. Our findings reveal that cloud providers have strong incentives to implement egress fees, yet these fees harm users. Regulating egress fees has often been evoked as a solution, ranging from banning them to capping them at the cost of transfer. We find that regulation improves user surplus, but excessive regulation, such as banning such fees, may harm total welfare in the presence of substantial switching costs. We also find that regulation can have opposing effects on societal outcomes: while it may incentivize cloud providers to increase switching costs for users, thereby harming society, it simultaneously stimulates cloud usage, which can accelerate digital transformation.
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