> You’re getting really confused here. Nobody is arguing about stuff being worth more than the sum of its parts. That’s obvious to everyone who has watched literally anything useful being constructed out of materials.

I really don't think I'm getting confused here. This is what you said: "Additionally, many people can contribute to make something greater that benefits everyone (see open source)". That sounds to me like "many people contribute to make a thing whose value is greater than the value of the inputs" aka "the whole is greater than the sum of its parts".

Regardless, your second sentence was still unsupported by that, because I can point to literally any open-source project and prove that no one contributor to that project could have created the project that exists today. Sure, there are projects where 80-90% of the project is written by one person, and even the rare case where an entire project is written by a single individual, but those are rare cases, and not the norm. The statement that "no one individual could recreate these projects on their own" is still accurate far more often than it's not. Finding a single counter-example doesn't prove the point, because your counterexample is the vast minority case.

We know for a fact in the case of Niantic's data gathering that no one individual could have made this model. There are many reasons, but the easiest to illustrate is the number of man-hours required to collect the input data.

> What you’re ignoring is the reality of people getting angry when they contribute something under a premise and then it gets used for something else. When I contribute to a charity that is supposed to build water supply systems and they decide to build pipe bombs instead, I’m gonna be pretty pissed off.

I'm not ignoring that reality, I'm just saying those people aren't justified in their anger. They can be angry all they want, but anger does not justify feeling entitled to something to which you really aren't. In the case of Niantic's data collection, they opted into this and agreed to collect the data on behalf of Niantic, without even asking what the data was to be used for. When it turns out that it's in purpose of something to make Niantic money (you know, to make up for the fact that you're playing their game for free), they really have no standing. To be clear, they're free to be angry and free to feel "cheated" in some way, but a) they haven't been cheated, and b) their ignorance is their fault and no one else's.

> The collective that produced literally all of the input can ask for the model and then easily copy it to each member. If a single person produced all of the input and then requested this, how much does your argument change? Because these scenarios are equivalent when the product isn’t rivalrous.

If a single person produced all the input and then requested it, I'd probably say they deserve a copy. However, no single individual can have produced all the input here, so the point is moot. There also is no "collective that produced literally all of the input", so that point is moot, as well. You would never be able to get every person's explicit consent to demand a copy of the model on behalf of "everyone", if not for the simple fact that the vast majority of those people simply don't give a shit. They'd never use the model or do anything constructive with it, so why bother with having a copy?

Neither of these examples are realistic, and so my argument doesn't change. I try to keep my arguments grounded in reality, not in hypotheticals.

And again, giving a copy to each member isn't free, even though copying it might be. I'll just quote myself again:

> Sure, copying it is approximately free. But using it provides value, and sharing the model dilutes the value of its usage. The fact that it's free to copy doesn't mean it's free to share. The value of the copy that Niantic uses will be diluted by every copy they make and share with someone else. [...] There is value in putting all the pieces together in the right way, and that value should rightfully be allocated to those who did the synthesis, not to those who contributed the parts.

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> More generally, you’re still not grokking non-rivalrous goods. A good isn’t non-rivalrous just because artificially constraining it and selling access to it can make it profitable. This confusion has led you multiple times to comparing this model to physical goods.

No, I grok non-rivalrous goods pretty well. I just think they're largely imaginary and only apply to a very small slice of non-physical goods. Niantic is building this model to make money from it. This means they believe the model will provide value to other users, who will pay them for the use of that model. Anyone else who obtains a copy of this model could use it in the same way, and obtain some of that market share for themselves. This means providing services built on this model is inherently rivalrous, which removes the entire basis of your argument. Even if this leads to lower prices for the end users (the ideal case), there is still direct competition (i.e. rivalry!) between all owners of the model.