Well, we all know I think so.  Everyone wants to be the next "Amazon" in the sense that they want to corner their market like Jeff Bezos has; and he is still in the process of growing.  He not only provides the marketplace to buy almost anything you need, he's got technology (Alexa), he's expanded into grocery, and he's expanding into delivery to cut out the cost of UPS and USPS.  Whatever you need, he finds a way to provide it and eliminate the middlemen.  He's a billionaire. (Not that there's anything wrong with that.) And it inspires people to accomplish the same. Look at Airbnb, Uber, Zillow, etc.  People want to take over whole markets.  Technology allows them to do this with way less employees. They have taken over enough of some markets to eliminate a lot of jobs.  They say that technology is taking our jobs but it's creating new ones.  This is true; but the jobs they are creating are tech jobs, or they pay less for you to do the exact same job you were doing before they took over.  Engineering technologists are set for life. Business is changing, and we need to change with it or get left behind.  I think a lot of people underestimate the power of technology to cut the workforce down.