Why pay? An empirical study of paid-for SQA sites in China

Abstract

Purpose The once failed paid-for social question and answer (SQA) service is in full swing in China. The traditional profit model, which typically relies on advertising, is abandoned in this case. Instead, users have to pay for content and service. The purpose of this paper is to explore why users are willing to pay in paid-for SQA sites. Design/methodology/approach This study carried out 14 valid semi-structured interviews to investigate “why did they pay.” The interviewees are users of three popular paid-for SQA sites. The qualitative data were obtained from valid interviews and processed through thematic analysis. Findings The analysis revealed five overarching themes: paying for the answerer’s heterogeneous resource, paying for more credible answer, the cognition of the question, the price is affordable and expecting potential revenue. The five themes and their sub-themes constitute the motivation for why users would pay in paid-for SQA. Practical implications As a new business model for online information services, paid-for SQA sites are facing fierce competition from traditional ones. The findings not only indicate the importance of establishing a reciprocal network relationship among users, but also provide a better understanding of users’ needs and demands for paid-for SQA services. The results are helpful for paid-for SQA sites to conduct a differential competitive strategy according to the user’s paying motivation. Originality/value To authors’ knowledge, this is the first study, which provides primary-source data and valuable insights into users’ paying motivation in the context of new paid-for SQA sites in China.

The impact of paid social Q&A on panic buying and digital hoarding at the stage of coexistence with COVID-19: The moderating role of sensitivity to pain of payment

“…The Willingness to Pay Scale is a five-item, self-report inventory that was created for the present study by adapting from Ref. [ 41 ]. The subjects were asked to complete the scale, based on their true feelings.…”

“…Usefulness indicates the degree to which users trust using information systems to improve business performance; Ease of use mainly refers to the ease of learning of the system and the relax of service use. Moreover, in paid online environment, users show higher expectations for content quality [ 41 ], so the content quality characteristics of paid social Q&A mainly include professional [ 42 ] and value [ 43 ]. Professional refers to the quality of content created by users; Value refers to user money burden and income perception when using new technologies and services.…”

“…The willingness to pay for social Q&A refers to the willingness of users to pay voluntarily for answers on social Q&A platforms [ 52 , 53 ]. Previous studies have shown that the diversity of answers, credibility, cognition of questions, acceptable price and expectation of potential benefits constitute the motivation of users to pay for paid social Q&A [ 41 ]. In addition, based on the Pain of Payment Theory, consumers will generate pain of payment in the consumption process, which plays an important role in restraining consumption [ 54 ].…”

Who sells knowledge online? An exploratory study of knowledge celebrities in China

“…There is an emerging body of literature on users' payment for knowledge products (e.g. Cai et al , 2020; Liu et al , 2021; Shi et al , 2020; Zhang et al ., 2019a, c; Zhao et al , 2020). Nevertheless, investigating consumers' willingness to pay for knowledge products is only a part of the pay-for-knowledge model in China.…”

Predicting the voluntary donation to online content creators

“…In the mandatory mode, some researchers attempted to provide the platform with optimal pricing strategies to achieve its sustainability (Sun et al , 2018). From the perspective of customers, other studies investigated the impact factors of customers' payment decision and satisfaction, including price, perceived quality and content contributor characteristics (Cai et al , 2018; Li et al , 2017; Liu and Feng, 2018; Su et al , 2019; Zhang et al , 2019a, b; Zhao et al , 2018). However, most of the literature drawn their conclusions based on the context of a Chinese platform Zhihu, which restricted the generalizability of these findings.…”