Cyberpunk saw surveillance capitalism coming
Cyberpunk did not predict flying cars. It predicted the business model: corporations using networks, surveillance, and quantification to turn human life into profit long before smartphones made it normal.[1][2]
Classic cyberpunk’s omnipresent cameras and screens look a lot like today’s ad tech stack: data brokers, shadow profiles, and behavioral data sold across hundreds of sources into one dossier.[6][8][9]
The genre also nailed reputation as a machine. Today that shows up as consumer scores, algorithmic risk scoring, and black-box decisions for loans, housing, jobs, and even prison time.[8][9][14]
Cyberpunk’s old megacorp is still here, but it wears a cleaner suit. Big platform firms now operate as data infrastructures, shape dependencies, and push governance through markets, lobbying, and technical standards.[14][15][16]
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