Receiving information seems much more valuable than giving it. After all, information has a price. If giving is not so great, shouldn't we be a little concerned about the consequences of trading away so much of it? Information asymmetry strikes me as the root of many power imbalances.
So, if we want more _value_ out of our "pocket supercomputers", it seems we have to consider the overall value proposition. Then perhaps we can figure out how to do better.
The problem with information is that it's only valuable in context. Scientific computing has given us wonderful breakthroughs, but it needs lab equipment, it needs data collection, it needs trained scientists, it needs theories and hypotheses to test. Computing was developed to break Nazi codes; the Enigma machine may have been the star of the show, but it also depended upon radio intercepts, field operatives, dispatch runners, generals, soldiers in the trenches, people who built fighter planes, etc. - and it obviously wouldn't have been useful had we not been at war. Similarly, most of the consumer data that's vacuumed up is only useful in the context of a task that millions of consumers want to do.
You're right that there's a power imbalance in the distribution of this information. The problem is that this power imbalance doesn't exist because of the information, it exists because of the context in which the information is collected and applied. Find a context where information can let you deliver a better product than competitors, and it's easily worth billions of dollars. But the information on its own - minus the product design, minus everybody else's information, minus the brand name and distribution channel and user adoption - is worth zero. It's already possible to siphon off and redirect all data that is being sent to Facebook & Google's servers on your behalf and save it to use on your own personal behalf. The problem is - it's useless. Without everyone else's data, there's nothing you can do with it.
I'd say the ability to make relevant predictions is a form of power.
Why is it a forgone impossibility for an individual to possess tools to capture similar value from their own information? Does self-knowledge hold no value? In my experience, changes in behavior (such as to better align with your own goals/interests) are often triggered by a clear and quantified message from a trusted source. Why not make this source your own information and your own computer?
Sure, what Facebook has is lower quality and harder to process than we might prefer, but there's nothing stopping us from collecting and structuring our own information in more appropriate ways, then layering on interfaces and algorithms, and then simply doing better than anyone else can. Because it's ours.
So the We is We hackers, who can design and build new information-contexts with different value propositions and power dynamics. And it's also We thinkers who can put together the reasoning behind such efforts. And We as regular people, who want more joy and less pain, with less effort.