We are moving to a world caught between two competing forces, Caliphate of ISIS and serfs working Death Star apps.

Uber, Amazon, Apple, facebook, exploit labour, pay no tax.

Amazon and Apple and Spotify, force down what they pay to suppliers.

Writers and musicians do not have to use these services, they can encourage their fans not to.

E-books can be published on leanpub, music and the spoken word on bandcamp.

No one is forced to book a fake taxi through Uber.

All capture externalities.

Facebook steals our personal data, which is then sold, no respect for privacy.

Amazon is fa more subtle, and could even be seen as a benefit to users.

If I choose This Changes Everything, PostCapitalism, a clever algorithm will note my choices, present to others.

On TripAdvisor, users provide the reviews, other users benefit, although there are now so many fake reviews, the utility is of limited value.

Walmart has long used its vast scale to extract from vendors ruinous concessions of price and terms. Some vendor companies see this trap and won’t do business with Walmart. (This choice may carry its own perils.)

Walmart could accomplish its monopolistic feats only because it developed by far the most advanced, integrated IT systems for inventory control and supply chain management, in some cases perhaps decades ahead of their time.

Because of this enabling technology, I’d call Walmart a “tech company” from the standpoint of this article. Without its early IT lead, I believe Walmart would have remained just another company with unfulfilled monopolistic aspirations, unable to viciously oppress vendors as successfully as it has.