You can sell expensive non-physical non-essential items of fashion positioning them as something everyone needs for only so long.

I mean, it's also even a bit of AI, but mostly that IT as important and in demand as it was is not compatible with being divided between a few gigantic monopolists with no good will whatsoever.

Less meaningful social activity happens in that suppressed environment, meaning less business.

And what happens, is being optimized, yes, because when thousands of well-paid developers are doing roughly the same things again and again, that can be optimized.

easy to hire easy to fire