"The only attitude consonant to our search for a comfortable, safe life is to constrain ourselves to our own limitations, ignore the intelligent life out there, and surrender to the mediocracy that our society has condemned our leisure time to."
I came to 2600 late in life so I can't get nostalgic about it, but I look forward to picking up new issues at B&N and do so in order to encourage them continue stocking the store. I discovered 2600 by randomly browsing at a comic book shop and wouldn't have had that experience if it were digital or subscription only.
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Doom is a good example: It both made it into popular culture (sold lots of copies, the Doom movie, etc.), but also hat cultural impact in the sense that it pushed 3D graphics. L0pht, the CCC, etc. had cultural impact in the same sense but never really made it into popular culture. Anonymous on the other hand did make it into popular culture but had no cultural impact (that I can think of right now).
It probably changed peoples reaction to Guy Fawkes masks, but that's about it.
I think Wikileaks and Snowden should get some credit for this as well. Also, I think the silk road guy should get most of the credit for "darknet" being a thing.
> Popular culture is culture.
Yup. But it doesn't necessarily affect other popular culture (which is how I defined "cultural impact").
Honestly I'm not sure, after reading it half a dozen times, not finding any unfamiliar words or concepts and reading the refs I still have absolutely no idea what the word salad between the intro and the end actually means.
On the other hand I very definitely can think of a bunch of pragmatic reasons (outwith the lack of extant unisonant collectivist hive minds) that people aren't currently busy openly forming underground, anarchist, borderline criminal (more in bravado than fact, but still) networks.