These companies have convinced their regulators not to enforce privacy, consumer protection or labor laws, provided that the gross violations of these laws are accomplished via apps.

This is where #TechExceptionalism is warranted: while the bosses that run these companies aren't any nobler - or more wicked - than the Robber Barons of yore, they *are* equipped with a digital back-end for their businesses that let them change the rules of the game from moment to moment.

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#PatentTrolls - who secure "with a computer" patents and then extract ransoms from people doing normal things on threat of a lawsuit - are an underappreciated form of "#TechExceptionalism." Normally, "tech exceptionalism" refers to bros who wave away things like privacy invasions by arguing that "with a computer" makes it all different.

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