Should We Pay for Our Social Media/Messenger Applications? Preliminary Data on the Acceptance of an Alternative to the Current Prevailing Data Business Model.

Cornelia Sindermann,Mark D Griffiths,Daria J Kuss,Christian Montag,Melina A Throuvala

doi:10.3389/fpsyg.2020.01415

Cornelia Sindermann, Mark D Griffiths + Show 3 more

Open Access

https://doi.org/10.3389/fpsyg.2020.01415

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Abstract

In the age of surveillance capitalism, the prevailing business model underlying the use of social media applications (“apps”) foresees the exchange of personal data for the allowance to use an online service. Such a data business model comes with many potential negative side effects ranging from violation of privacy issues to election manipulation. Therefore, it is of utmost importance to think of alternatives to the current data business model. The present study investigated how strong the support would be for a monetary payment model among a sample of 210 participants. Participants were asked about their willingness to pay for social media, if in turn their data would be private and other problems concerning social media use would be tackled. Only one-fifth of participants (21.43%) supported such a model. From the Big Five personality traits, Agreeableness was positively associated with support of such a model. Finally, data are also provided on how much participants would be willing to pay for social media on a monthly basis. The present study’s findings are of a preliminary nature and will contribute to the start of an important discussion.

Highlights

It has been estimated that 3.8 billion humans used social media1 and messenger services in 2020 (We Are Social et al, 2020)
The data business model has been highly criticized because it raises ethical questions in the area of privacy and encourages developers to design platforms which are “addictive” (Burt, 2019; Montag et al, 2019; for the addictive potential of platforms see Sha et al, 2019; Sindermann et al, 2020a,b)
Willingness to Pay for Social Media/Messenger Services The willingness to pay for social media/messenger services was assessed in two ways

Summary

Introduction

It has been estimated that 3.8 billion humans used social media and messenger services in 2020 (We Are Social et al, 2020). Users can use an online service in exchange for their data being used by the platform operators Such digital footprint data are studied and analyzed by the social media and messenger app companies by means of algorithms, and the online profiles are sold to the marketing industry in order to enable them to engage in microtargeting (Kirkpatrick, 2016; Matz et al, 2020). The data business model has been highly criticized because it raises ethical questions in the area of privacy and encourages developers to design platforms which are “addictive” (Burt, 2019; Montag et al, 2019; for the addictive potential of platforms see Sha et al, 2019; Sindermann et al, 2020a,b) This is due to more time being spent on the platforms, leading to more user data being assessed, which in turn leads to better predictions of the users’ preferences through the algorithms used

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