In the digital marketing space there are actually companies that you pay for the privilege of sharing your data! The idea is that by contributing to the identification of marketing segments your site becomes more attractive to paying advertisers. You give a little or receive a little or hopefully a lot.

The thing is data is an asset. An asset has value. You invest assets to acquire other assets.

If you are a retail chain who had a dataset identifying your store locations closest carparks to those locations then by making that data public you gamble that the benefit to your organisation is greater to you than the benefit to your competitors.

I've seen some really great examples of OData and some really imaginative uses for it.