A Cognitive Model of People's Usage Estimations

Abstract

The author explores how consumers anticipate product or service usage during the purchase deliberation and develops a descriptive model of the decision process in which consumers integrate their usage expectations into the choice between paying a flat fee for unlimited access or paying per use. The model helps explain why consumers habitually overestimate the likelihood of using enough to justify the flat fee and how this misperception depends on the perceived range of usage anticipated by the user.