I think a reasonable, but also apparently false, assumption would be that if you invest significant amounts of time, energy and money into putting out a product consumed by hundreds of thousands of people, you should be able to make at least a living wage.
The problem with that assumption is that the consumption occurring is probably <10 minutes of killed time for the consumer. What would you pay to lose 10 minutes while waiting for your wife to get out of the changing room or your kid to get out of school or whatever?
You wouldn't pay a damn thing for that. Just because a product is widely consumed doesn't make it valuable any more than the time and money put into making it. I can spend thousands to create a 2 by 2 cube of steel and stick it in my front yard, the fact that investment was made doesn't mean its valuable.
