They totally missed the mark on this one: "What’s meant to distinguish Infinite Jest (the book) from various artefacts that precede it is the conflation of entertainment with drug addiction, and this notion is, I think, fundamentally flawed."

It's now pretty clear entertainment can be neurologically addictive, as evidenced by the social media companies and their abilities to predict improved engagement.

On top of that, we've now got an attention + an opioid addiction.

If anything, DFW was just very early at predicting the medium term state, complete with national secession movements.

Not bad for a 'verbose' fiction writer.