I’ve written a post on LinkedIn about the need for market-making in on-demand markets. I argue that for a market to be on-demand for one side, you require the other side to be able to provide liquidity. This liquidity comes at a cost and the side needs to get compensated for it. Driver incentive schemes at Ola/Uber and two-part electricity tariffs are examples of such incentives.
An excerpt:
In a platform business (or “two sided market”, or a market where the owner of the marketplace is not a participant), however, the owner of the market cannot provide liquidity himself since he is not a participant. Thus, in order to maintain it “on demand”, he should be able to incentivise a set of participants who are willing to provide liquidity in the market. And in return for such liquidity provided, these providers need to be paid a fee in exchange for the liquidity thus provided.
Read the whole thing! 🙂