Customer Willingness to Pay for Online Music: The Role of Free Mentality

Free mentality, a strong belief that everything online should be free, has been ironed into people’s minds. This concept also significantly affects the development of e-commerce. However, despite the importance of this “free mentality” concept, a lack of systematic investigations inhibits our understanding of this issue. Based on the decomposed theory of planned behavior, this study focuses on free mentality and investigates its direct and interactive effects on the consumer’s attitude toward paying, which, in turn, affects the intention to pay for online music services. Data collected from 268 online music users illustrates the direct and negative impact of free mentality on attitude toward paying. The moderating role of free mentality on the relationship between perceived sacrifices and attitude toward paying is also illustrated. At the conclusion of this paper, we discuss the results and their implications for practitioners and academics.