This chapter explores the potential for market-driven personal data empowerment. It begins by discussing the results of a recent study into the economic and business case for personal information management services (PIMS), providing an overview of the variety of services and some key market developments. The following sections consider the problems that PIMS might be able solve, and the extent to which their solutions could be genuinely empowering, by reference to some key aspects of Enlightenment thought, starting with Adam Smith's notion of enlightened self-interest, which later developed into the concept of homo economicus at the heart of classical economics. I argue that this ideal became ever less realistic as the economic system it theoretically justified became ever more complex, with the result that in many markets, businesses profit from the fact that individuals are ill-equipped to deal with said complexity. I propose that the seeds of a solution can be found in the notion of an ‘ideal observer’, also originating in Enlightenment thought; a hypothetical ideal version of an individual, with perfect knowledge and rationality, whose perspective and insight can steer its ordinary, fallible human counterpart towards better decision and action. In so far as PIMS can help individuals approximate this abstract agent, they offer the possibility of genuine enlightenment and empowerment, fit for the complexity of modern consumer markets.