Abstract: Paying for existing answers, namely, users’ acquisition of repliers’ answers to the initial askers
with relatively low price, is an important mode of the current paid Q&A platforms in China. To gain a better
understanding of users’ paying behavior for existing answers, the present study collects a great amount of data
from the Q&A section of Zaihangyidian, the most popular Chinese pay-for-knowledge platform, using webcrawler
programmed in Python. It explores the factors influencing the number of payments for the existing
answers, and especially the effect of the number of repliers’ followers. Results from the first study indicate
that the number of repliers’ followers, answer’s price, and answer’s length significantly predict the number of
payments, while the second study confirms the serial mediating effects of answer’s price and answer’s length
on the relationship between the number of repliers’ followers and the number of payments.

Key words: Knowledge payment, Fans economy, Payment for existing answers, Q&A platform