Forbidden fruit or soured grapes? Long-term effects of the temporary unavailability and rationing of US news websites on their consumption from the European Union

Thurman, Neil and Sly, James and Wilczek, Bartosz and Fletcher, Richard (2022): Forbidden fruit or soured grapes? Long-term effects of the temporary unavailability and rationing of US news websites on their consumption from the European Union. Published in: International Communication Gazette , Vol. 84, No. 7-8 (15 July 2022): pp. 698-720.

Abstract

In May 2018, hundreds of websites located outside the European Union (EU), including USAToday.com, became completely or partially unavailable to EU citizens as a number of publishers decided to comply with an EU data protection regulation (GDPR) by blocking access. Several of the sites that started to exclude EU users continued to do so for months or years, even though some of their competitors, like the New York Times, never adopted a policy of exclusion. These differing strategies allowed us to conduct a quasi-experimental study on the effects of temporary product unavailability and temporary rationing. We find that both temporary product withdrawal and temporary rationing can have long-term effects. In our case, monthly unique visitors in the months and even years after full access was restored were between 44% and 61% lower than they had been before the restrictions were imposed, with a wider market contraction explaining only part of these falls. We also find distinct differences between the effects of temporarily rationing and temporarily withdrawing websites. Although both strategies lead to a long-term loss in visitors, rationing appears to increase a website's desirability for some consumers. After rationing was lifted, USAToday.com's reduced audience consumed the title more deeply and frequently than had been the case before rationing was imposed.

• Item Type: MPRA Paper
• Language: English
• Keywords: General Data Protection Regulation; lock-in; product availability; rationing; restricted availability; status quo bias; switching costs; transnational news audiences; unavailability; website consumption
• Subjects: D - Microeconomics > D1 - Household Behavior and Family Economics > D11 - Consumer Economics: Theory; D - Microeconomics > D1 - Household Behavior and Family Economics > D12 - Consumer Economics: Empirical Analysis; D - Microeconomics > D2 - Production and Organizations > D21 - Firm Behavior: Theory; D - Microeconomics > D2 - Production and Organizations > D22 - Firm Behavior: Empirical Analysis; D - Microeconomics > D4 - Market Structure, Pricing, and Design > D45 - Rationing ; Licensing; H - Public Economics > H3 - Fiscal Policies and Behavior of Economic Agents; K - Law and Economics > K2 - Regulation and Business Law > K20 - General; K - Law and Economics > K3 - Other Substantive Areas of Law > K33 - International Law; L - Industrial Organization > L8 - Industry Studies: Services > L82 - Entertainment ; Media; M - Business Administration and Business Economics ; Marketing ; Accounting ; Personnel Economics > M1 - Business Administration > M15 - IT Management; M - Business Administration and Business Economics ; Marketing ; Accounting ; Personnel Economics > M3 - Marketing and Advertising > M38 - Government Policy and Regulation

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