I think it just sort of derives from cyberpunk, which was all about the near future and the street finding its own uses, but in this case instead of it leading into a dark dystopia, the authors are trying to find a way for it to lead into something more positive? Like where corporations and governments don’t rule everything.

So, for example, Stealing Worlds starts out being about hiding out from the government in a LARP game, where surveillance cameras show up as guards and you’re smuggled from house to house via slave escape routes, etc. But then it gradually segues into taking that farther and exiting the traditional economy completely.

Delta-V and Rich Man’s Sky are about billionaires trying to jump start expansion beyond planet Earth. Termination Shock and Ministry for the Future are about fighting climate change in new ways that ignore the current government/corporate interference that has prevented taking direct action.

Basically, there is a little bit of the “punk” aspect in each of them, just in the fight to make something better for people happen now instead of later at some nebulous point after the current crop of politicians finally expire. Some more than others, but it’s interesting stuff none-the-less, and a really good thing to think about IMHO.