That would mean $8T total.

You're forgetting that many of the 8 billion people don't have internet or have very little data being shared.

If we assume 8 billion people and $1 trillion industry, it's only $125 a year. That's the worst case.

If we assume 4 billion people and $4 trillion industry, it's $1,000 a year. That's the best case. Perhaps a little too optimistic, but it's also very easy maths.

Working backwards from my $500 user value with 30% margin for the brokers, that's around $715 in the industry. This could be made from 6 billion people and an industry value of $4.29 trillion.

Maybe $350 per American.

Using the method above, that would be $500 in the industry, and with 6 billion people the industry would be worth $3 trillion.

To get more accurate numbers we would need a specific value for the industry. However, I think we can confidently say the value of user data is in the hundreds of dollars, not pennies as is commonly suggested.

I only summarized what the other person said. Bring your complaints to him.

Some nations would be worth more per person to a data broker than others. How many billions have no Internet? How many have little money to spend on the companies the data broker sells to? Americans and Europeans would be at the top of the list, per capita, and could easily exceed $1000, and the total would just barely top 1 trillion.

Nah I'm a demon that can be summoned with the incantation of "Cat gee, be tea"