But in 2012, that way of talking, if it was ever helpful, is no longer.

And there are five reasons for that: Apple, Google, Amazon, Facebook, and Microsoft. Now, when we say, "The Internet" or "smartphones" or "computers" we usually mean something shaped by one of these entities, or all of them.

At least that's how Bruce Sterling is thinking about things. In his annual conversation with Jon Lebkowsky on the WELL about the state of the world, he classed in "The Stacks," as he called them, with "some interest groups of 2013 who seem to be having a pretty good time."

Stacks. In 2012 it made less and less sense to talk about "the Internet," "the PC business," "telephones," "Silicon Valley," or "the media," and much more sense to just study Google, Apple, Facebook, Amazon and Microsoft. These big five American vertically organized silos are re-making the world in their image. If you're Nokia or HP or a Japanese electronics manufacturer, they stole all your oxygen. There will be a whole lot happening among these five vast entities in 2013. They never compete head-to-head, but they're all fascinated by "disruption."

What will the world that they create look like? Here's what I think: Your technology will work perfectly within the silo and with an individual stacks's (temporary) allies. But it will be perfectly broken at the interfaces between itself and its competitors.

That moment where you are trying to do something that has no reason not to work, but it just doesn't and there is no way around it without changing some piece of your software to fit more neatly within the silo?

That's gonna happen a lot: 2013 as the year of tactically broken bridges.