The online "user data" business model is identical to the highway, or the magazine, or the mall, or the airport business model. You create traffic by providing access at or below cost, and make money by selling ads to all the traffic you create. Should highways, airports or magazines pay users money from the revenue they generate by selling ads around their high traffic properties?<p>Another consideration is about the proportion of an ad's cost that can be attributable to the data these companies have, which depends on the degree to which the ad is targeted or not. For example, are keyword-tied search ads and the money Google makes from them related at all to any data they may have on you?<p>Furthermore, any attempt to account for the "price" of used data (basically just something to id you online) should be matched by a valuation of the true value this companies offer in compensation. In the case of google: what's the value to users from having fast, accurate search; petabytes upon petabytes of free content (from the mundane to the educational) on youtube ($5 - $9/mo if you go by Disney+/Netflix prices); and entire office suite ($5 - $12/mo looking at many SaaS/Office 365) kept up to date; a quality email client ($99/yr for Hey); a free OS for your phone and computer (Android/Chromebooks); a high quality global mapping service w/ turn-by-turn GPS ($300 devices back in the day?); a Calendar ($3 - $9/mo looking at competitors), 15GB of cloud storage; unlimited storage for all your photos in the cloud (say the average user has 50Gb of photos, thats $3 - $9/mo).... and I could go on. In the case of Facebook I believe there is genuine value in having a directory of all your friends/acquaintances/family, and a repository for memories either there or on instagram.<p>I see the techlash and policies like this data-dividend as a very natural impulse from society to get a spoonfull from the honeypot these companies created. Just because it is natural doesn't mean it is right. Our economic model is premised on the idea that the fruits of your labor/property/ideas are yours to keep, however spectacular they may be. Keep in mind that this policy does nothing to change the way this companies operate, or question their overall effects on society.