Welcome to the real world. It's twisted in exactly this, game-theoretical way.
In case of ransomware, criminals are exploiting the very difficulty of victims to coordinate their actions. They depend on you paying instead of solving it yourself, educating others, or even simply calling the police. In other words, they profit directly off people's short-term, selfish thinking. The advice of defaulting to not paying is sound because if enough people follow it, the whole ransom stops being viable, which makes ransomware attacks stop coming.
The same, by the way, is the tried and true way of dealing with regular, meatspace, "I kidnapped your daughter" ransom cases.
In case of ransomware, criminals are exploiting the very difficulty of victims to coordinate their actions. They depend on you paying instead of solving it yourself, educating others, or even simply calling the police. In other words, they profit directly off people's short-term, selfish thinking. The advice of defaulting to not paying is sound because if enough people follow it, the whole ransom stops being viable, which makes ransomware attacks stop coming.
The same, by the way, is the tried and true way of dealing with regular, meatspace, "I kidnapped your daughter" ransom cases.