The book is even worse than the movie, IMHO. Shamelessly plugging my own article [1] But the movie had the potential to be a cultural game-changer in the same way as Hackers and surely The Matrix had to the adoption and "coolness" of the Internet at the turn of the century.
Hackers was a joke but it has an enduring cultural cachet with IT nerds at least. I hear "hack the planet" and references to "the gibson" all the time still. I don't think I've ever heard a single IRL reference to anything in RPO
There were plenty of references, but they were to the same '80s pop culture that the book worships. Really, all of the VR tech was just a plot device to create a magic world where that Gen X nostalgia never ends.
Ready Player One tells us about technology about as much as Ralph Breaks the Internet: Wreck-It Ralph 2 does.
Huh? People refer to corny one liners from Arnie movies too, that doesn't mean they had a philosophical impact on the way those people think about guns, or whatever.
Hackers is a hilarious and fun over the top movie but I don't think it changed the way anyone thinks about technology.
Hacker surely was exaggerated, ridiculous, and misinformed but it made tech "cool".
I believe that Metaverse tech, which is currently at the same stage is isolationistic and enjoyed by a fringe of users. Same as the Internet was seen in the early '90s.
[1]https://medium.com/@jsemrau/hackers-vs-ready-player-one-b6ad...