what if you had to pay for instagram?

I was casually scrolling through Reddit, one of the many apps in my daily rotation, when I stumbled across a subreddit confusingly titled r/nosurf.

Initially thinking it was a community of people who hated surfing, California, and 60s surf culture (“what did the Beach Boys ever do to you?” I thought), I clicked on it.

Turns out, it’s actually a community focused on becoming more productive and quitting mindless internet surfing (ironically, by posting about it online). As someone who studies media and communications and is chronically online by both hobby and degree, I kept reading until I found an extremely interesting discussion:

If you had to pay for social media, would you?

The answers were predictable, but still revealing. 

Many users admitted they already pay for some platforms, mainly YouTube Premium, to dodge ads. But for most, paying for social media would be the nail in the coffin: 

“I wish that happens so I can be more motivated to delete them”

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“If that happened, I’m not paying for shit. That’d be perfect motivation to delete. Because unfortunately I care More about wasting money than my time/life/mental health.”

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“i’d quit too”

After discussing this hypothetical case with my friends, they all seemed to agree with the r/nosurf subreddit users. This would be the perfect opportunity to finally overcome our social media addiction. So yeah, maybe platforms should start charging so that we all finally look up from our phones. 

Interestingly, one friend said she’d happily let go of all social media – if her friends did too. A vivid representation of our generation’s FOMO.

But what stood out was that she’d keep Pinterest since she finds it genuinely inspiring. In economic and academic terms, she assigns emotional, aesthetic, and practical value to the app. Pinterest makes her happy, so she’d pay for it.

my confession? i would pay for instagram

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In this what-about-me era of social media, you’re probably wondering what I’d do. 

Well… I’ll admit it: I’m too addicted to delete everything. After all, social media is how I keep in touch with most friends and practically my entire extended family.

But would I pay for all the platforms I currently use?

Absolutely not. Money doesn’t grow on trees, and I’m self-aware enough to know I don’t need 27 different places to doomscroll.

So if I had to choose between the ones I actually use on a daily basis – Instagram and TikTok (I’m not on X/Twitter anymore #thankgod) – I’d choose Instagram. 

Why?

Because Instagram is the Swiss Army knife of apps, and I am, frankly, lazy. (I’m Spanish; it’s cultural.)

It stole Snapchat’s stories, TikTok’s reels, and Twitter’s threads. It’s a one-stop shop for everything: photos, DMs, short-form video, and doomscrolling.

If I have to pay, I’ll pay for the platform that gives me the most in return. 

so… what are we actually paying for?

If money is the ultimate deterrent – but also, sometimes, the motivation – then the real question becomes:

What value do social media platforms genuinely provide us, and would that value still exist if they charged us for it?

Because if paying forces us to delete the apps that drain us, but hold onto the ones that inspire us… maybe that price tag tells us something our phone screen times never could.