&gt; Any fair transaction should surely balance?<p>I don&#x27;t think that&#x27;s true, because a company could have the means to do something profitably that an individual couldn&#x27;t.  For example, I just changed the toner cartridges on my printer, and HP provided UPS stickers so I can send the old ones back for &quot;recycling&quot;, which is obviously just them filling them back up and selling them to someone else.  Let&#x27;s assume they just made $20 on the deal.  That doesn&#x27;t mean I&#x27;d have $20 if I&#x27;d kept them, because to me, lacking a factory to refurbish them, they&#x27;re just garbage.  Same goes for all of that personal information Google and Facebook make money on -- you can&#x27;t go down to the pawn shop and sell your own information, because it only matters in bulk.