Calling something corporate is far too vague for any sort of meaningful qualification. Neuromancer was published by Ace a subsidiary of Penguin - thus making it the product of the corporate machine.
I will whole hardily agree that corporations manage to water down a lot of interesting things to drive mass market appeal but building something interesting within a corporation doesn't negate its message. We live in a world where 90%[1] of genuine political discussion happens hosted by either Google, Facebook or Reddit - those are our forums for discussion in the modern world.
I'd also just briefly disagree with litmus testing and gatekeeping as generally useful concepts - in almost all the cases they're applied they're used to try and reduce a complex spectrum discussion into a binary choice (aka capital punishment, weed legalization, abortion legality) and they add nothing of value - merely providing an easier tool to help clump a wide discussion into the theming of Us vs. Them.
1. I have no facts for this but I think it's a reasonable ballpark.
I will whole hardily agree that corporations manage to water down a lot of interesting things to drive mass market appeal but building something interesting within a corporation doesn't negate its message. We live in a world where 90%[1] of genuine political discussion happens hosted by either Google, Facebook or Reddit - those are our forums for discussion in the modern world.
I'd also just briefly disagree with litmus testing and gatekeeping as generally useful concepts - in almost all the cases they're applied they're used to try and reduce a complex spectrum discussion into a binary choice (aka capital punishment, weed legalization, abortion legality) and they add nothing of value - merely providing an easier tool to help clump a wide discussion into the theming of Us vs. Them.
1. I have no facts for this but I think it's a reasonable ballpark.