Data gathering is valuable only because it's a concentration of a huge number of very low value things. Think of it like a dam and reservoir at the drainage of

Data gathering is valuable only because it's a concentration of a huge number of very low value things. Think of it like a dam and reservoir at the drainage of a major watershed. You can position things to collect all the rain and snow melt over a large area. But it's not like you are going to pay everyone for each rain drop.