Managing a Peer-to-Peer Backup System: Does Imposed Fairness Socially Outperform a Revenue-Driven Monopoly?

We study a peer-to-peer backup system, where users offer some of their storage space to provide service for the others. The economic model for such a system is different from the ones applicable to peer-to-peer file sharing systems, since the storage capacity is a private good here. We study two mechanisms aimed at incentivizing users to offer some of their capacity: a price-based scheme (here a revenue-driven monopoly) and a more classical symmetric scheme (imposing users to contribute to the service at least as much as use it). We compare the outcomes of such mechanisms to the socially optimal situation that could be attained if users were not selfish, and show that depending on user heterogeneity, a revenue maximizing monopoly can be a worse or a better (in terms of social welfare) way to manage the system than a symmetric scheme.

• Type: Conference
• Year: 2007
• Where: GECON
• Authors: László Toka, Patrick Maillé
• Keywords: Business, Classical Symmetric Scheme, GECON 2007, Peer-to-peer Backup System, Symmetric Scheme