One-Sided Competition in Two-Sided Social Platform Markets? An Organizational Ecology Perspective

Similar to love, competition can often be unrequited. This study explores the asymmetric pattern of competition driven by membership overlap in two-sided mobile social apps (MSAs) markets. Building on the niche-width dynamics framework, we theorize and validate the relative prevalence and survival capabilities of messaging apps and SNS apps, especially when membership overlap fosters current or potential competition between the two app categories. The analyses—based on panel dataset consisting of information on 8,483 panel members’ exact amount of time used for 21 mobile social apps—show that competition between SNS and messaging apps can be asymmetric in favor of messaging apps. This asymmetric pattern is more pronounced for membershipbased competition compared to usage-based competition. In addition, different MSAs developed by same platform providers exhibit synergistic effects, rather than destructive consequences, on each other’s growth. The findings identify the complex nature of competition within-category and between-category competition in MSAs markets.