Economists assume that there exists some value V that if you offered $V to someone to quit facebook, they would be indifferent to the offer. That is, if we offe

Economists assume that there exists some value V that if you offered $V to someone to quit facebook, they would be indifferent to the offer. That is, if we offered V + $0.01 they would certainly take the offer and consider themselves a penny better off, and if we offered V - $0.01 they would refuse the offer. There's also some cost to facebook. In the first world it's probably just whatever you perceive to be the impact on you from reduced privacy. In the third world, well, I seem to remember Facebook actually provides internet to people solely for the purpose of using Facebook so in such a case the cost might be tangible. In any case, call it C. Then consumer surplus is V - C, summed over all consumers. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_6kwhF6hoqQ https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_6kwhF6hoqQ