> One sort of answer would be how people are convinced that their data is not important.

When I'm wandering through my yard watering plants, I like to imagine a world where our personal data, or more precisely access to it, is treated more like mineral rights today.

Companies would be required to pay a small micro-payment royalty anytime your data was used to make them money, and you would be able to transfer/split the rights just as you could mineral rights today. This micro-payment world would supplant the current "your data is the price of admission" world we live in.