&gt;What about the marginal utility of time?<p>Everyone gets 24 hours in a day.  The &#x27;copious amounts&#x27; of free time of welfare recipients is capped.  The same cannot be said of monetary wealth.  Therefore the marginal utility of time has a lower limit that does not exist for the marginal utility of monetary wealth.<p>&gt;In a protection racket, I am worse off than I would be if the racketeer and I never encountered each other.  In the proposed uber for welfare scheme the recipient is better off.<p>In both scenarios the disadvantaged party cannot walk away from the transaction without loss in value.  In this case, your implicit definition of &#x27;better off&#x27; is &#x27;lose less than they would otherwise&#x27;.<p>If you have just crawled out of a desert on the verge of death of dehydration and I sell you a cup of water for $100,000 and a pinky finger you may be &#x27;better off&#x27; under your definition.  Would you say that it is overall a value positive transaction?