I think Snowcrash is intentionally campy and satirical?
At any rate I don't think what science fiction writers do is "exploring possible futures" so much as "telling lies for fun and profit" as one author entitled his fiction writing craft book.
At any rate I don't think what science fiction writers do is "exploring possible futures" so much as "telling lies for fun and profit" as one author entitled his fiction writing craft book.
In fact it's been a while since I read Snowcrash but it's set implausibly close to when it was written in 1992. This is presumably intentional.
In any case, speculative fiction is usually more about the present than it is about the future. The original Star Trek, for instance, dealt quite a bit with the racial politics of the 1960s, even though it was set in the 2260s. The hypercapitalism in Snow Crash (and other cyberpunk works around that time) reflected the trend of American society in the 1980s and 90s. It was less "telling lies" and more logical extrapolation of the existing trend, which hasn't really been arrested since, either.
Could hyper corporatization of America continue? Sure. Might the author be commenting on present trends? Absolutely.
Does the book's author actually believe the mafia might hire street samurai to do pizza deliveries? Probably not.