A Non-Cooperative Game Analysis of Competition between Content Providers in the Internet Market

Abstract

In internet market, content providers (CPs) continue to play a primordial role in the process of accessing different types of data. Competition in this area is fierce; customers are looking for providers that offer them good content (credibility of content and quality of service) with a reasonable price. In this work, the authors analyze this competition between CPs and the economic influence of their strategies on the market. The authors formulate their problem as a non-cooperative game among multiple CPs for the same market. Through a detailed analysis, the researchers prove uniqueness of a pure Nash Equilibrium (NE). Furthermore, a fully distributed algorithm to converge on the NE point is presented. In order to quantify how efficient the NE point is, a detailed analysis of the Price of Anarchy (PoA) is adopted to ensure the performance of the system at equilibrium. Finally, an extensive numerical study is provided to describe the interactions between CPs and to point out the importance of quality of service (QoS) and credibility of content in the market.