Distinguish data rights from execution costs and identify the participants being paid.
Using a Data Product can involve several contributions: permission to use information, processing by a host, storage, transport, or another service. Each has its own price and recipient.
Keeping these components explicit helps a consumer evaluate the total activity rather than confusing the value of the data with the cost of serving it.
An activity can involve more than one payer or recipient. Preserve each directed charge and credit alongside any net total, so the record explains who funded which contribution and who earned it.
A zero-priced offering can still depend on paid services. Work performed on your own equipment can also use another participant's priced contribution.
Payments and budgets explains quotes and spending authority. Contributor earnings describes receiving value; sponsored information explains third-party funding and rewards.
Developer reference
Each component binds priced contribution, offer ID, quantity, unit price, payer and recipient. Data-use value remains separate from Host compute, custody, transport and external-service charges.
For a 12-token operation, claims might allocate 8 to a data owner and 4 to processing. The aggregate total retains those directed edges and their execution evidence.
Compute participant net cost as Σ outgoing − Σ incoming. Equal payer/recipient wallets do not erase gross claims. Explicit zero pricing does not zero a paid dependency. Preserve contribution and offer attribution through settlement so the total can be reconciled to its components rather than treated as an opaque intermediary fee.