Have Computers and the Internet killed SciFi as a genre?

[The Romulan Republic]

Yeah, this person sounds like an idiot.

To echo and elaborate on what's been said above, even Hard Science Fiction is only irrelevant when we know everything about the universe, beyond all debate and doubt, and even then, Fantasy, Soft Science Fiction, and Alternate History would still have a lot of ground to explore.

[Beastro]

Sci-Fi is one aspect of Fantasy, which is only limited by the human imagination only set by certain rules we agree upon that make said fantasy have a science fiction feel to it.

Split within that is also the divide between Hard and Soft Sci-Fi, and I could possibly see Hard taking a hit but won't slow down. Soft will never be killed, since it is effectively mythology in a veneer of science which is pretty much just typical human story telling being made.

This pissed off people like Stanislav Lem, but it's effectively how people model and reflect upon the world when his mindset was more of your average hyper-rational modern.

You want to see more modern takes on Sci-Fi in a mythological context, look the Riddick movies and the universe it's build around where Mankind surmounted the shock of modern technological leaps and has settled down in the broad long term impact of technology that allowed Man to spread out into the universe so long ago Earth is a memory at best.

IMO, this shows that the future of Sci-Fi was laid out mainly by Frank Herbert and Dune, but has been carried on (and twisted) by various kinds of Sci-Fi that have Transhumanist elements to them.

[ChiggyvonRichthofen]

Even with transhumanism, you can go back hundreds of years and see that similar ideas have been explored for hundreds or thousands of years- from Icarus to Nietzsche's ubermensch. Specific plot details (what zombies look like, computers or AI being involved with human transcendence, etc.) might not come along all that often, but those are often just superficial details that aren't really at the heart of what's being explored. Maybe it seems like all the tropes are being retread, but new ideas are always pretty rare.

There does seem to be a kind of interesting divide right now between "mainstream sci-fi" and sci-fi in the vein of Star Trek. Even the new Trek movies have been "popularized" in a way, so there aren't a lot of shows out there in the latter camp (The Expanse is the one that comes to mind).

Finally, very little sci-fi in film or tv has ever qualified as true hard sci-fi, so it's hard to say we've been getting less of that.

[MithrandirOlorin]

The Anthology serieses from back in the day did some Legit Hard SciFi. Those are what needs to make a come back, everyone now thinks only long ongoing sagas can make bank.