Technology is never neutral. What gets developed, how it gets developed, and how it gets used are all driven by social, economic and political factors. People who build services are never neutral either and can certainly never be normal users of their own services. This article looks behind the internet of things to reflect on how completely frictionless transactions move power from consumer to provider, how what is normal for designers of such services is very different from what is normal for many of those who will find themselves using them, and how technology – and the data it moves and organises – is always about power.