When friends ask me why I do not use Uber, the answer is simple: I do not want to send my money off to Sili Valley. Taxis have historically been a vital ingredient in any local economy and I would rather support the people in my community. Ordering a car via an app means the profits leave town.

But when I ran high-tech companies at the turn of the millennium, much of the optimism that surrounded the internet came from the idea that, as a shared computing network, it would spread opportunity among the many not the few. Romantic perhaps, but I was not alone.

Of course it has not turned out that way. The so-called sharing economy has not shared anything. Rather it has aggregated valuable consumer data, concentrating advantage in a few well-funded behemoths.