Cyberpunk, the Postglobal and the Posthuman

A company that does not seem like a cyberpunk example would be Uber. The premise of it is allowing people to have freedom to work when and wherever they want and also be their own boss. A lot of drivers use Uber as their main source of income, but they do not keep standard protection nor benefits. Different articles show that Uber has built in loopholes so they do not have to pay their drivers fairly and even lock them out of the app. This directly affects their income and them being able to support themselves.This also creates a situation where workers feel stuck, because leaving the platform could mean losing their main source of income without having another option ready. Because of this, Uber looks like more of a system that controls its workers because they depend on it. ## Flexibility Without Protection This is sort of like Sleep Dealer where the job is an opportunity, instead it kind of traps its workers. Memo chooses to work with the nodes, in the same way Uber drivers chose, but this is based on their situation. Memo needs this job to survive and to send money to his family. In the same way Uber drivers depend on the app for money, but the algorithm controls everything. This type of work does not have stability, protection, or benefits which leaves workers in vulnerable and tough situations (Apouey, et al., 2023). There are also reports that show Uber has loopholes used so they do not have to pay their drivers and workers fairly. These loopholes even go to extremes of locking people off of the app which affects their ability to make and earn money (Business & Human Rights Resource Centre, 2024). In Memo’s situation and the Uber drivers, they are both in a situation where they have limited choices so that “choice” is not really a choice. ## Dependency on Work
This brings up the question of whether or not we are moving toward the kind of corporate power seen in cyberpunk. In some ways, yes, especially with companies like Uber. Uber has a large number of workers who depend on the platform for income, which gives the company a significant amount of control over them. Technology makes it easier for corporations to manage workers in ways that are not always obvious, which can feel almost like manipulation. However, this is not exactly the same as a full cyberpunk world. There are still laws and regulations in place that are meant to protect workers and limit corporate power. At the same time, these laws are not always strong enough or consistently enforced, which allows companies to continue certain practices. Additionally, workers do not always have the power or resources to fight for themselves against these big companies. This raises concerns about how effective these protections really are in the long term. It also shows that cyberpunk is not a perfect prediction of the future, but it is not completely exaggerated either. Instead, it highlights real problems that already exist and pushes them further to show what could happen if these issues continue without stronger regulation or accountability.

References

Costa, T. G., et al. (2023). The burden of prolonged sedentary behavior imposed on mobility application drivers. Journal of Exercise Science & Fitness. https://pmc.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/articles/PMC10323908/

Business & Human Rights Resource Centre. (n.d.). USA: Uber & Lyft allegedly exploit loopholes to deny drivers fair wages, impacting mental health. https://www.business-humanrights.org/en/latest-news/usa-uber-lyft-allegedly-exploit-loopholes-to-deny-drivers-fair-wages-impacting-mental-health/

AI Attestation AI was used to simplify the prompt and help come up with headings and titles. I also used AI to help me with citing my sources and coming up with my references. https://chatgpt.com/share/69c88804-175c-8327-ada4-24f4450e5970

When Corporations Write the Rules: Are We Living in a Cyberpunk Prologue?

In cyberpunk worlds, governments fade into the background while corporations become the real centers of power. From the Tyrell Corporation in Blade Runner to Tessier-Ashpool in Neuromancer, these entities control labor, technology, and even human identity. What once felt like speculative fiction now feels eerily familiar. Across industries, from Big Tech to pharmaceuticals, real-world corporations increasingly shape public policy, economic opportunity, and even the boundaries of human autonomy.

Surveillance Capitalism: Owning Not Just Data, but Behavior

One of the clearest parallels to cyberpunk fiction lies in what scholars call surveillance capitalism. Companies like Google and Meta Platforms collect massive amounts of user data( not just to understand behavior), but to predict and influence it. According to Shoshana Zuboff, this model turns human experience into raw material for profit, often without meaningful consent. This echoes Neuromancer, where corporations don’t just sell products, they shape reality itself. In both cases, individuals become resources. The difference? Today’s version operates quietly, embedded in everyday apps and platforms.

Pharmaceutical Power: Pricing Life Itself

The pharmaceutical industry provides another stark example. Companies like Eli Lilly and Pfizer have faced scrutiny over drug pricing practices, particularly in the United States. For instance, insulin prices rose dramatically over decades, despite the drug being discovered over a century ago. This dynamic resembles Machinehood, where corporate interests dictate access to life-sustaining resources. When essential medicine becomes a profit-maximizing product, human life risks becoming secondary to shareholder value. Insulin

Gig Economy Labor: Disposable Workers in a Digital Machine

Companies like Uber and DoorDash have revolutionized work, but at a cost. Gig workers are often classified as independent contractors, meaning they lack benefits like healthcare, job security, or minimum wage protections. This mirrors the precarious labor conditions in cyberpunk fiction, where workers are easily replaceable and stripped of rights. The algorithm becomes the boss, opaque, unaccountable, and indifferent. In many ways, the gig economy turns people into extensions of a platform, much like the commodified humans in Blade Runner.

Are We Headed Toward Cyberpunk Reality?

The short answer: partially but not inevitably. Cyberpunk exaggerates for effect, but it is grounded in real trends. Corporate power today is enabled by several factors: Globalization: Corporations operate across borders, often outpacing national regulations. Technological complexity: Governments struggle to regulate rapidly evolving industries like AI. Economic influence: Lobbying and campaign financing allow corporations to shape policy decisions. However, there are still meaningful checks on corporate power. Governments can and do regulate industries; consider antitrust actions against Amazon and Apple. The European Union, in particular, has taken a more aggressive stance on privacy and competition through regulations like the GDPR. Public awareness also plays a critical role. Unlike in cyberpunk worlds, where resistance is often fragmented, today’s citizens, journalists, and researchers actively critique corporate behavior. This critique matters; it shapes public discourse, influences regulation, and holds power accountable.

Is This Uniquely American?

Not entirely, but it is more pronounced in the United States. The U.S. tends to favor market-driven solutions and has historically been more permissive of corporate consolidation. In contrast, European countries often prioritize consumer protection and data privacy. Meanwhile, countries like China exhibit a different model, where corporate power exists but is tightly integrated with state control, raising its own dystopian concerns.

Why Critique Still Matters

Cyberpunk is not just prediction, it’s warning. By exaggerating corporate dominance, it forces us to confront uncomfortable truths about power, inequality, and technology. We are not yet living in a Blade Runner world. Governments still exist. Rights still matter. But the growing influence of corporations over data, labor, and healthcare suggests that cyberpunk is less a fantasy and more a mirror, one that reflects what could happen if power goes unchecked. The future is not predetermined. Whether we move toward or away from a cyberpunk reality depends on regulation, public engagement, and our willingness to question who really holds power in society.

References

Zuboff, S. (2019). The Age of Surveillance Capitalism. U.S. Senate reports on insulin pricing (2021–2023). European Commission: GDPR and antitrust cases Academic and policy analyses on gig economy labor practices

One of the main characteristics of societies in cyberpunk stories is that corporations are more powerful than the government. They control the world and the people based on their most important goal: profit. In these stories, money matters more than human lives, which is something to be scared of. The worst thing about that is to notice the similarities with real life. Nowadays, big technology companies have great power over individuals. Because they have access to massive amounts of data - such as what people browse, their location, what they buy - they can influence people’s decisions without them even noticing. This is clearly a form of control, and it brings us close to those societies we are so scared about – at least I am - from Cyberpunk stories.

What is really happening?

To make this clear, let’s bring some theory to the discussion. Shoshana Zuboff – American author and professor at Harvard Business School – created the term Surveillance Capitalism to explain how the control by big companies is established. It describes how companies collect people’s data and use it to: 1. Predict what they will do and 2. Influence their decisions. Zuboff explains that companies like Google and Facebook make money by collecting and using personal data (Zuboff, 2019), which means that instead of selling products, companies sell information about people.

The Cambridge Analytica Scandal

In the 2010s, Facebook was involved in the Cambridge Analytica Scandal, where millions of users had their personal data collected without their consent to create highly targeted political messages for campaigns during the 2016 election (Kozlowska, 2018). This episode exemplifies how corporations sell and use people’s data to influence their decisions and thoughts. It shows how powerful corporations have become in our society and how they can influence democratic processes, such as the elections. Additionally, the fact that a company can affect political outcomes like that challenges the government authority.

Are we heading toward Cyberpunk Societies?

Another perspective we can discuss about this situation is how most people are not aware about how much influence corporations have in our society. The truth is, many users put their personal information on websites, without even understanding the effect this can have. People make themselves vulnerable to manipulation simply by completing a survey or a questionnaire. Honestly, it’s like these big corporations see people as sources of data that can be used for profit or strategic purposes. And isn’t this the key idea in cyberpunk stories? Where people are treated less like individuals with their own identities and lives, but more like participants of a greater system of power and control moved by profit. I hate to admit it, but these societies are not fully fictional anymore.

The Tyrell Corporation in Blade Runner

The movie Blade Runner illustrates this situation really well. The Tyrell Corporation creates replicants and uses them to obtain profit, without even considering their humanity or rights. Similarly, Facebook uses people’s data as a resource, which suggests a priority of interests related to profit, rather than people’s rights of privacy, autonomy, and even society’s democracy. Thus, in both situations – fictional and real-life – individuals are treated as tools within a larger system controlled by a powerful corporation, indicating that our society is heading toward cyberpunk’s corporate dominance.

A Globalized Issue

The growth of corporate dominance is not just a problem in the United States. It is true that American companies tend to have more freedom and can operate within less strict rules, but other countries have been dealing with this situation as well. Countries in Europe, for example, have really strict laws about privacy to try to limit how corporations use personal data. Meanwhile, in China, corporate control is tied to the government, which means companies don’t have that much freedom to act. Therefore, even though corporate control and power is dealt differently across countries, it is noticeable that it’s a global issue enabled by technology and globalization. Because of that, it is extremely important to discuss about this in news, media, and in classes, so people are not oblivious to how their personal information is being used and how vulnerable their privacy is in a world moved, and perhaps controlled, by technology and profit.

Sources

Zuboff, S. (2019). The age of surveillance capitalism: The fight for a human future at the new frontier of power. PublicAffairs.

Kozlowska, I. (2018). Facebook and data privacy in the age of Cambridge Analytica. University of Washington. https://jsis.washington.edu/news/facebook-data-privacy-age-cambridge-analytica/

Scott, R. (Director). (1982). Blade Runner [Film]. Warner Bros.

Cyberpunk has always asked a disturbing question: what happens when corporations become so powerful that they begin functioning like governments, but without the accountability of governments? In fiction, corporations like Tyrell in Blade Runner and Tessier-Ashpool SA in Neuromancer control technology, labor, and even human life. Similarly, in S. B. Divya’s Machinehood, corporations profit from systems that push workers to their physical and mental limits while treating them as expendable. While these worlds may seem exaggerated, real-world corporations especially Amazon, show that these concerns are not purely fictional.

Amazon’s scale alone reflects a level of influence that resembles cyberpunk megacorporations. According to its 2024 annual report, Amazon generated $638 billion in net sales, with Amazon Web Services (AWS) contributing over $107 billion, positioning the company not just as a retailer but as a major piece of global digital infrastructure (Amazon, 2025). This matters because AWS supports governments, businesses, and online systems worldwide. When a corporation controls both commerce and infrastructure, its power begins to extend beyond traditional business influence into something more systemic. Similar to the corporations in cyberpunk that shape everyday life itself.

However, the strongest cyberpunk parallel lies in labor practices. A 2024 investigation by the U.S. Senate Health, Education, Labor, and Pensions (HELP) Committee found that Amazon warehouse workers experienced injury rates over 30% higher than the industry average, largely due to intense productivity quotas and algorithmic management systems (U.S. Senate HELP Committee, 2024). These findings suggest that workers are often treated as units of efficiency rather than individuals with physical limits. This mirrors Machinehood, where corporations design systems that extract maximum output from workers regardless of long-term consequences. While Amazon does not literally require performance-enhancing drugs, the pressure to maintain productivity at all costs reflects a similar mindset: the body becomes secondary to output.

Environmental practices also reinforce the cyberpunk comparison. Amazon’s 2024 Sustainability Report states that while the company reduced its carbon intensity by 4%, its total carbon emissions still increased by 6% due to continued growth (Amazon, 2024). This contradiction highlights a common corporate pattern, as efficiency improves expanding environmental impact is paired with it. Cyberpunk fiction frequently portrays corporations presenting themselves as innovative and forward-thinking while contributing to environmental degradation in the background. Amazon’s own data reflects this tension between sustainability messaging and the realities of scale.

So, are we actually heading toward cyberpunk-style corporate dominance? In some ways, yes but not entirely. Cyberpunk should be understood less as a literal prediction and more as an exaggerated critique that helps us recognize real-world trends. Governments still regulate corporations, and democratic systems still exist. However, corporations like Amazon have gained enough influence to shape labor conditions, technological infrastructure, and environmental outcomes in ways that feel comparable to the early stages of cyberpunk worlds.

This issue is not entirely global in the same way. The United States tends to allow larger concentrations of corporate power compared to other regions. For example, the European Union has taken a more aggressive regulatory approach by labeling companies like Amazon as “gatekeepers” under the Digital Markets Act, recognizing their control over digital markets (European Commission, 2023). This suggests that corporate dominance is not inevitable but is influenced by political and cultural choices about regulation.

There are also real-world checks on corporate power. California’s warehouse quota law (AB 701) limits the use of productivity quotas that interfere with worker safety and basic rights, and in 2024, regulators fined Amazon nearly $6 million under this law (California Department of Industrial Relations, 2024). These actions show that intervention is possible. However, they also highlight an important point: regulation often comes after harm has already occurred, rather than preventing it from happening in the first place.

This is where cyberpunk plays an important role. It is not just entertainment, it is a warning. Cyberpunk encourages us to question systems that prioritize efficiency over humanity, growth over sustainability, and profit over well-being. It pushes us to recognize when corporations begin to act less like businesses and more like governing forces in society.

Amazon is not a cyberpunk megacorporation in the literal sense. But it reflects many of the same patterns: massive influence, reliance on human labor as a resource, and the ability to shape everyday life on a global scale. Cyberpunk remains relevant because it reveals what can happen when these patterns go unchecked. Whether that future becomes reality depends not just on corporations, but on how society chooses to respond.

AI Statement

I used AI as a support tool to help organize my ideas, refine the structure of my blog post, and ensure clarity in my writing.

References

Amazon. (2024). Amazon Sustainability Report 2024. https://sustainability.aboutamazon.com/2024-report

Amazon. (2025). Amazon 2024 Annual Report. https://s2.q4cdn.com/299287126/files/doc_financials/2025/ar/Amazon-2024-Annual-Report.pdf

California Department of Industrial Relations. (2024). Warehouse quotas (AB 701). https://www.dir.ca.gov/dlse/FAQ_warehousequotas.htm

European Commission. (2023). Digital Markets Act: Gatekeepers. https://digital-markets-act.ec.europa.eu/gatekeepers-portal_en

U.S. Senate HELP Committee. (2024). The Amazon investigation report. https://www.help.senate.gov/imo/media/doc/amazon_investigation.pdf

image: A representation of corporate power and data surveillance!

Cyberpunk vs Reality

Cyberpunk literature has long imagined a future where corporations dominate, often surpassing governments and viewing human lives as disposable. These fictional organizations, like Tyrell Corporation in Blade Runner and Tessier-Ashpool SA in Neuromancer, control technology, prioritize profit, and shirk responsibility. Although these stories may seem exaggerated, many modern companies behave in ways that closely resemble these dystopian visions, especially in areas such as gig economy labor practices, pharmaceutical pricing, and surveillance capitalism.

Hacking the Mind, Not the Body: Surveillance Capitalism

The way internet corporations gather and utilize personal data is one such example. These days, businesses collect a lot of personal data and use it to target advertisements and forecast behavior. This concept relates to the topic of "hacking the body vs. hacking the mind" that we covered in class. Hacking in cyberpunk is about manipulating people, not just systems. In the real world, businesses don't hack our bodies, but they do have an impact on our beliefs, purchases, and ways of thinking. This system, which turns human behavior into a resource for businesses, is frequently referred to as surveillance capitalism (Axios, 2019). That makes me think of cyberpunk settings where individuals are continuously seen and impacted.

Identity and Privacy Loss in the Digital Age

Additionally, there is concrete proof of the effectiveness of this data collection. According to a Federal Trade Commission investigation, big social media corporations gathered a lot of user data and shared it with outside parties, often without the consumers' knowledge (The Guardian, 2024). This relates to the loss of identity and privacy, another cyberpunk concept we discussed. People lose control over their own knowledge in such scenarios, and a less severe version of that is happening now.

Government Power vs. Corporate Power

The notion of businesses taking the place of established power institutions is another link to our class. In cyberpunk, businesses dominate most of the choices, and governments are powerless. Companies still have a lot of power, even though it isn't entirely true nowadays. They can influence laws and policies through economic power and lobbying. This gives the impression that the distinction between corporate and governmental authority is becoming increasingly hazy.

The Value of Human Labor and the Gig Economy

The gig economy is related to the previous class information on the worth of people in cyberpunk settings. People are viewed as disposable and only useful for what they can provide in many stories. These days, gig workers for businesses like DoorDash and Uber frequently lack benefits and job stability, which makes them feel the same way. Employees are crucial, but they can be readily replaced. The concept of humans being reduced to their utility is reflected in cyberpunk.

Cyberpunk as a Caution, not a Prediction

I don't believe that our culture is entirely cyberpunk. This relates to another topic covered in class: cyberpunk is frequently a critique rather than a forecast. These tales exaggerate real problems. Governments still have authority and can control businesses in the real world. For instance, various nations have different laws governing corporate control and data protection, demonstrating that businesses do not have total authority.

Views from Around the World on Corporate Power

This is not only an American problem; it is a global one as well. While governments are more stringent in certain nations, companies have greater flexibility in others. This demonstrates how the system determines how companies and power interact, a topic we have also discussed in class while comparing various civilizations.

Conclusion: What should we do next?

In my view, cyberpunk serves as a warning about what may happen if corporate power is abused. Although we are not quite there yet, there are early indications, particularly in the areas of corporate influence, labor practices, and data gathering. The way people react is what counts. We can keep things from being as bad as cyberpunk fiction if we remain conscious and keep challenging these structures.

Sources

Axios. (2019). The new data capitalism. https://www.axios.com/2019/06/25/personal-data-big-tech-companies-privacy-capitalism The Guardian. (2024). Social media firms engaged in vast surveillance, FTC finds. https://www.theguardian.com/technology/2024/sep/19/social-media-companies-surveillance-ftc

OpenAI. (2026). Digital eye with data overlay representing surveillance and personal data tracking [AI-generated image]. ChatGPT.

AI Attestation: I improved the organization of my work and create title image with the use of AI. Based on what I learnt in the course, the thoughts and connections to the course material are my own.