Big Tech is Like a Danwei

George Pullman built Pullman, Illinois in the 1880s alongside his railroad car factory: a planned community where the company owned the workers’ housing, stores, church, library, and bank. Workers were paid partly in scrip redeemable only at company stores. When Pullman cut wages during the depression of 1893 while holding rents fixed, workers could not cushion the blow by cutting other expenses, because the company controlled those too. They had no recourse and nothing left to lose. The 1894 Pullman Strike paralyzed rail traffic across the country and required federal troops to suppress, which tells you something about what total control eventually produces. A developer whose business depends entirely on the App Store, a seller whose inventory and customer relationships live on Amazon, or a creator whose audience exists only within a single platform is in an equivalent position: the terms can be changed at any time, the cost of departure is prohibitive, and the entity that provides…