Managing the Versioning Decision over an App’s Lifetime

The authors investigate app publishers’ decisions to offer free, paid, or both versions of an app over an app’s lifetime by taking into account the interplays between the demand for the free and paid versions and publishers’ consideration of future profit streams. Their empirical analyses are based on a comprehensive model of publishers’ versioning decisions calibrated on a data set of 584 top-downloaded apps on Google Play. They find...