In return for forking over the vast majority of their income. It doesn't just vanish (well, except for credit card interest...that does just vanish). The "vortex" that the grandparent's referring to is the money that customers are shelling out for services, which then becomes a tech company's revenue. But in return for shelling out that money, they get mobile phones, cloud storage, a place to stay in every city, on-demand transportation, access to service professionals, a second income stream, exposure for their business, and many other things of value.