By Qian Pingfan, Research Department of Industrial Economy, DRC

Research Report, No.213, 2019 (Total 5713) 2019-12-3

Abstract: Prosumers or production-type consumers are consumers who actively take the initiative in the production and circulation of products or services, actively assume more or less producer functions, and accordingly receive benefits from these aspects. The concept of prosumers emerged in the early 1980s, which has become a point at issue among researchers and gradually become a new social group due to the formation of several scale models. Though prosumers came into being in the last century, only few people know of them. Under the drive of scientific and technological revolution and business model innovation in the era of digitalization and intelligence, digital-oriented prosumers have truly become integrated into the mainstream. The rise of prosumers has a profound impact on social and economic performance, triggering paradigm changes in many fields. Prosumers are evolved from consumers and the evolution has traversed a thorny road. As prosumers are easily to become producers, the government needs to actively guide their way forward and exercise relevant regulation. In order to comply with the rising tide of the prosumers and promote their high-quality growth, it is advisable to adopt the following policy options. First, the government needs to attach great importance to the development of prosumers; second, the government needs to add prosumers as a new category to the social group; third, the government needs to study and formulate relevant laws for prosumers; fourth, the government needs to put into effect relevant policies conducive to the development of prosumers; fifth, the government needs to strengthen platform regulation on the evolution process of prosumers.

Key words: consumers, prosumers, digital prosumers, producer functions, ne