[jrockway]

You're not getting any intrinsic benefits. If you are a US citizen, you are allowed to return to the US after international travel. Global Entry doesn't change any of that.

On average, it does make returning easier, which is nice... but the machines could be out of order, or you could be flagged for questioning in the usual manner, etc.

[akerl_]

If “making something easier” doesn’t count as a “benefit”, I think that maybe there’s a fundamental disagreement about what it means for something to be beneficial.

Global Entry is pretty clearly beneficial for the user, as part of the border control experience. Whether having things like Global Entry is beneficial to society is, as `tptacek points on parallel to your comment, a very different question.