The Sprawl

Gibson's future is grimy, corporate, and brutally stratified. The phrase "high tech, low life" defines cyberpunk: advanced technology coexisting with poverty, addiction, and social decay. This vision influenced Blade Runner, The Matrix, Ghost in the Shell, and the actual design of internet culture.

Technology creates new forms of inequality rather than utopia. Gibson saw that cyberspace would be owned by corporations, not liberated by hackers. The digital divide he imagined in 1984 put powerful elites in control of information infrastructure while everyone else scavenged at the margins.