1) They take deposits
2) They make payments
3) They charge fees
4) They make loans

How exactly do they differ from a bank? If it walks like a duck and talks like a duck.....

As everyone dumps CS education in favor of marketing and MBAs. And selling used cars.

OK. I was joking. I really blame Obama.

I blame Islam!

It is much harder to love someone when you realize one day they gave you a virus. ;)

"You get discounts on other goods and services."

So that is what you call CEO perks, bonuses, and severance pay.....

Most of what you complain about is due to insufficient tax revenue or due to Congressional attempts to actually interfere with good governance and good stewardship. As the other poster said, move to a country without a strong government such as Somalia or Mexico. Just watch out for the gangs, militias and death squads. A few taxes are a low price to pay for the benefits of civilization.

"Corporation demand the right to sell your personal information for the benefit of others"

Fixed that for you. Remember, civilizations have long existed and thrived without corporations. The last few hundred years are an anomaly.

Is there a word for that even? Where you pay somebody and they unwelcomingly shag you? Only thing I can think of is "taxpayer."

Nah. I don't know your situation but I get, or have received; roads, schools, fire protection, cheap food, clean water (unheard of in many places in the world), airports, railway travel, national parks, national forests, state forests, public parks, heavily subsidized university education, cleaner air, cleaner water, and public libraries. By pooling my tax money with others I we use our combined cash to create a civilization. Which is why I hate tax cheats and dodgers, they are parasites.

And they don't even kiss you first.

Moderated 'insightful'? Seriously? To me it is blindingly obvious.

private cash only transactions.

Well, you cannot buy stocks directly, just derivatives which I do not trust. You could directly lend or invest in a company there but the cash out mechanism can be highly restricted. So good luck with that.

face it. tech has the shelf life of fresh fruit.

True.

BSD

Who needs Windows to run a word processor? Who needs Windows to run TurboTax when the preparation companies own web based products work just fine in almost any web browser? Who needs Windows for games when there's a BSD running PS4?

I don't need Windows:

[CronoCloud@ ~]$ uname -a
Linux 3.19.1-201.fc21.x86_64 #1 SMP Wed Mar 18 04:29:24 UTC 2015 x86_64 x86_64 x86_64 GNU/Linux
[CronoCloud@ ~]$ cat /etc/redhat-release
Fedora release 21 (Twenty One)