You misunderstand.  The point is that the more data they have, the more valuable and &quot;accurate&quot; their analysis is -- it&#x27;s like crowdsourcing genetics by building one large database.<p>So your complaint of &quot;why don&#x27;t they just sell it at the cost plus a margin&quot; doesn&#x27;t work here.  They&#x27;re dropping the price because they&#x27;re paying you for your information to make their service better.<p>It&#x27;s like Tumblr not having ads (for a period of time).  &quot;Why are you giving this to me for free?&quot; you ask.  Because then you&#x27;re more likely to use us, and then we&#x27;ll have a bigger user base and make tons of money later.<p>That&#x27;s how SAAS models can give away their &quot;service&quot; for free and still be valued at billions of dollars.