Oh no.
> Plenty of companies (Google, Apple, Facebook, Microsoft, ...) give back way more than they take
OH NO.
In what planet is donating to a charity the same as "donating" code to a for-profit enterprise, but even more insane (in my opinion ofc) in what planet do google and facebook "give more than they take"??
Do you really think the ability to use their search engine is worth more than that to you?
With less than 0.1% of their annual ad revenue I could retire tomorrow, debt-free, and set up a trust fund for my daughter so she'd never have to work a day in her life.
People say that ads work so of course you are affected by them, but I am pretty sure lots of people aren't affected that much by ads. Luckily for ad companies there are a lot of ad-whales out there, people who are very easy to influence and get money from. These are the same kind of people spending lots of money in free to play games, at casinos or who falls for MLM schemes.
Google's entire ad revenue, of course, comes from "a few ads".
Consumer surplus?