Table 6.2: Willingness to pay (WTP) and willingness to accept payment (WTA) for nine social media platforms (excluding non-users)
explicable disparity between choices and valuation.In short: having had to pay nothing to use such People choose to use or consume WTG, but they platforms, people dislike the idea of a monthly fee. When people say they are willing to pay $O, would not be willing to pay much, if anything, to or only slightly more, they were effectively buibeyo peis oh buioh ahe no< fl, :buiounouue WTG are real, important, and understudied. me, well, then, forget about it!" Something similar Importantly, some periods of wasting time might not be regretted; they might be a way of relaxing would only pay a small monthly amount (say, and recharging. People might well pay for such $5 or $10). They might well have been registering periods. But other such periods seem not only pointless but also some kind of loss. People would not pay for such periods. Social media may well for free. Here, then, is a reason to think that the count as a WTG, in the regretted sense, for some users. But I speculate that the low WTP numbers are not fully explicable in those terms. Another expressive. They are in the nature of protest There is a separate point, and it involves answers, reflecting a kind of indignation, and to opportunity costs. The WTP question puts that extent, not at all a reliable measure of the welfare benefits of using social media platforms. for many people, much of the time. When people