I was told if something is free then you are the product. Please try to keep up.

It's okay if you don't follow my point, you can ask.

yes. volunteering, creative works based on self actualization and need are things that exist, and are seperate to organizations with investors expecting a monetary return, yet somehow accept no money for the services they offer.

Another such institution would be a public library. The end goal of such institutions are to increase knowledge/capabilities of the local community. The "you are a product" part of it works in a kind of "non-zero sum game" like outcome where if you give resources to a community, the increase in skills of the community gives you a bigger return or less losses eventually, compared to if you let that community wallow in misery and deprivation. (Crime goes down, employment goes up, thus money within community increases, taxes are extracted from the community replacing the amount spent making the public resource. As a result of decreased crime/anti-social/maladaptive behaviours, the community has lesser public costs associated with them).

Thus, you get more programmers that know what the fuck they are doing, you have an operating system you couldn't have made by yourself, etc etc.

EDIT : It's one of the problems of thinking about things "normally"; you assume things are zero sum, that is, if I have an apple, and give it to someone else, I have no apple! but it's more, If I give him some surplus wood, and he gives me some surplus nails, we can both have tables that we could not have before, which is worth more than the wood I gave him.