I also enjoyed the article but the entire thesis is incorrect, though. Anonymous has had far more of a cultural impact on society and technology than Cult of the Dead Cow, lopht etc did.
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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.