You've made some great points! You're totally right that Gibson did not foresee this. I think there's a difference between Virek's near omnipotence, which terri

You've made some great points! You're totally right that Gibson did not foresee this. I think there's a difference between Virek's near omnipotence, which terrifies Marly, and the modern surveillance state. The idea that someone's phone is monitoring their location and browsing habits wouldn't surprise someone today. The idea that someone had a network of people analysing their actions in real time definitely would though. When I originally read the Sprawl trilogy in the early 2000s, these instances of omnipresent surveillance really made an impression on me. Particularly those of Wintermute monitoring and protecting Case. The scene where Wintermute intercedes in Case's arrest ( which someone above mentioned ) stands out in particular. There's a playthrough on Youtube ( with commentary ) of 1993's Cyberpunk classic game System Shock by the original developers. They laugh together about their lofty predictions of video mail becoming the normal mode of communication. Instead we're still sending 120 char text messages in 2020. The future is hard to predict for many reasons.