We consider a communication system where a group of users, interconnected in a bidirectional gossip network, wishes to follow a time-varying source, e.g., updates on an event, in real-time. The users wish to maintain their expected version ages below a threshold, and can either rely on gossip from their neighbors or directly subscribe to a server publishing about the event, if the former option does not meet the timeliness requirements. The server wishes to maximize its profit by increasing subscriptions from users and minimizing event sampling frequency to reduce costs. This leads to a Stackelberg game between the server and the users where the sender is the leader deciding its sampling frequency and the users are the followers deciding their subscription strategies. We investigate equilibrium strategies for low-connectivity and high-connectivity topologies.

翻译：我们考虑一个通信系统，其中一组用户通过双向八卦网络互联，希望实时跟踪一个时变源（例如某个事件的更新）。用户希望将其预期版本年龄维持在阈值以下，如果前一种选项无法满足及时性要求，他们可以选择依赖邻居的八卦传播，或直接订阅发布该事件的服务器。服务器希望通过增加用户订阅量并最小化事件采样频率以降低成本，从而最大化其利润。这导致服务器与用户之间形成Stackelberg博弈，其中发送方作为领导者决定其采样频率，用户作为追随者决定其订阅策略。我们研究了低连通性和高连通性拓扑下的均衡策略。