games

The 80s were also a time when brands were transitioning from being a company that sold a specific thing to broad conglomerates that encompassed vast ownership over multiple sectors of industry. Brands started cementing themselves as lifestyles, or identities, rather than places that make and sell a thing. That's always been the crux of cyberpunk to me, the exploration of the idea that large corporations exist that aren't anything in particular, they're all encompassing powers that govern society and shape everything into commercialism. Like the Tyrell Corporation makes replicants, but what they really make is the contours of social life. Weyland-Yutani makes spaceships and mining equipment sure, but they also have broad control over how labor is performed and seem to have command over paramilitary units.

So you're right, it doesn't hit as hard as it did back then because we've been living in that reality for decades. There's nothing to explore or a warning to make, the moment's already here.

There's also definitely something to be said about the genre's fear of white western society losing aspects of itself and absorbing Japanese/Chinese/Korean/etc culture.

There's also the failure of late 90s post-cyberpunk and it's attempt to reimbue faith in liberal and social democratic institutions, though the best post-cyberpunk was always New Space Opera, which shared Cyberpunk's cynicism but explored the possibility of new systems.

James Baldwin:

How far they've fallen.

you say that but back in like 2009 I distinctly remember that libs and chuds would often criticize Obama for being too lighthearted. The boring way he talks was considered way too whimsical and charismatic back then. Now that I'm typing all this out it was probably just racism.