Most of the products and services around you are publicly owned.

That's right. Nearly every product in your house or service you use, unless its provided by the government, it could be produced by a publicly traded company, meaning that any Jo schmoe can buy a piece; a tiny tiny fractional ownership in the company.

Ownership is the key to wealth. Owning the means of production. Even a little bit of it, entitles you to a little piece of the action. We are consumers but many of us never learned to be producers, and that OK, because we can still benefit from the Producers! They have graced us with the opportunity to buy into their production by buying shares in their company. Also it just so happens that the CEO's and Executives of these company's have a fiduciary duty to return value to share holders. Why wouldn't you go along for the ride and make some money yourself by participating in Capitalism?