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Cyberspace, in Gibson's earlier work, was a tool used by bad people.

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In the Sprawl, cyberspace is for thievery. While they aren't limitted to these things, in his earlier novels, the internet's main purpose is negative in nature, and in his later works, its purpose is more positive.

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While technology doesn't stop being a neutral tool, Gibson has slowly begun to portray humans in a more optimistic light, at least in terms of what they do with this stuff.

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Originally posted by Jaunter:
In PR, the footage is the main aspect of the net.

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Misty, you fail at human endeavor!

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MR: In Neuromancer they were modulated by the need for access, to jack. The same as a Burroughs character has this need for junk. And yet the desires of the characters in Virtual Light seem to have become more multifaceted, obfuscated as you go on. I mean, Rydell doesn't know what he's looking for. He just... He seems to want to... Well, I don't know, you'd know him better than I do. And Chevette just always seems to want to get away. So do you feel that that's to do with yourself becoming more financially secure?

WG: No.

MR: Or older?

WG: Yeah, I think it was an attempt to... Oh I don't know, in some ways as I get older I feel more desperate. I think it has more to do with an attempt at literary naturalism and I honestly think that Chevelle and Rydette... ... Rydell and Chevette... I think that Chevette and Rydell are more like most people than most people are like those console cowboys and razor girls in Neuromancer. No, I don't think those people really know What They Want, in capital letters, beyond just getting by. It strikes me that most people will... are just getting by.
One thing that those two want is to have a job. They want to make a living and they don't have real good jobs and their jobs are very important to them. And that's very different from Neuromancer. That's a much more naturalistic take on human existence than anything in Neuromancer.
The only character in Virtual Light that is anything like a character from the previous three novels is Loveless the Psychopath, the sadistic psychopathic killer. And he's... One of the inside jokes with me in the book is that Loveless is this guy who if he appeared in Count Zero would just be part of the wallpaper. Turner would kill him, stuff him under a Volkswagen and go have a cappuccino and not even think about it, but in Virtual Light he's this over the top crazy monstrous thing who's almost unbelievable. He's meant to teeter precariously on the edge of the ridiculous. So I had him in as being like the... he's the only character in the book who's like a character from Neuromancer, the only semi-major character.
And the rest... the rest of the major characters, they're drawn a different way, you know, and I like to feel that they're quite a bit less cartoony. They have character. They have parents and... shifting inner monologue. All of it, you know? I was sort of trying to do naturalism there. But I don't know what they'll make of that on the Net.
If I could send them a message... If Mister Gibson could send a message to the boys on the Internet I'd tell them to go and get a dictionary and look up the word 'irony'.