For the service-oriented manufacturing supply chain with uncertain demand, based on maximizing each participates' profits, this paper investigates the interaction between pricing mechanism and demand signal acquisition by establishing several signal acquisition models. It is shown that the service-oriented manufacturer always benefits from the additional signal acquired, and the signal releasing does not affect its profitability. While the crowdsourcing intermediary is reluctant to share his private signal with the self-operated crowdsourcing platform, and it is not necessarily beneficial to predict additional signal so as to obtain more accurate demand forecast. As for service preference, it is shown that the impact of consumer's preference on profits is not related to signal acquisition, but is subjected to the service-oriented manufacturer's unit service operating cost. Some numerical experiments are provided to test the validity of the obtained results.

To address user privacy concerns and improve user trust levels, sharing platforms are commencing to focus on investing in blockchain technology. This study focuses on blockchain technology investment and pricing strategies for two asymmetric sharing platforms. By constructing a Hotelling model, we investigate the investment strategies of the two asymmetric platforms regarding blockchain technology under different user attribution behaviours, i.e., single-homing or multi-homing, and the optimal pricing under different investment decisions. Afterwards, we compare and analyse the investment strategies under different conditions, obtain the influence of relevant market factors on the pricing strategies of the platforms, and finally determine the optimal timing of blockchain technology investment for asymmetric sharing platforms. The results indicate that when users’ perception of blockchain value is high, both platforms are motivated to introduce blockchain technology, and, conversely, a stronger platform exits the blockchain market. In multi-homing markets, platforms are more likely to implement blockchain strategies and the cost of technology investment is significantly higher than in a single-homing market. In addition, we also find that the degree of differentiation has a significant impact on the blockchain strategies of weaker platform under multi-homing market.