> It's a utopia, which is rare amongst sci-fi futures.
Utopias used to be the most common scifi futures. This is what the so called Cyberpunks (Sterling, Gibson, Cadigan, ...) rebelled against.
It used to be all about what wonders technology will bring us. By the time of the 70s it became clear that technology doesn't necessarily make everything better, but can be a burden in itself, or even widen the gap between the haves and haves not. And that is what they wrote about. It turned out to be the most popular scifi with audiences deeming it more believable.
I’m of two minds on utopias. On the one hand it seems we need a positive vision for the future, where technology is used to solve our greatest problems and improve the planet. On the other hand it seems that perhaps technology is incapable of making us happier, because it isn’t clear to me that we are happier now than in past decades, despite having more advanced technology.