tough_cookies

I would say the distinction you're going for here is simple but not easy.

I always had an easier time getting up snowy/ice hills (in Boston) than my friends did in their autos. I remember once driving up a hill in front of a friend so he could use my tire indentations to get up behind me.

While I want to agree with this, it's hard to argue that Facebook and Google "privatize all the gains." If you added up all of the economic value that google's zero-dollar-cost products provide globally (even ignoring Facebook which IMO has a much more dubious net value), that's going to be a pretty big number.