The issue I have with your reason against it being cyberpunk is that there’s nothing in cyberpunk to say that the fictional roaming nomads aren’t just mobile homeless, able to move to where the work is but never able to find enough work to settle someplace.

Cyberpunk is great for a fictional setting because it looks cool, has some slick character types, fun villains, and relatable heros… but cyberpunk is dirty, and a lot of society in these worlds have been left behind, exploited, and forgotten. I fear that some people view cyberpunk as a society to strive towards, rather than a thought experiment on what could go wrong as we shape our future.

True. Society is too atomized and hyperindividualized for the “mobile homeless” as this article calls them, to come together and form the roving bands that we see in Pondsmith’s vision of Cyberpunk.