How was David's story even sad?
1. David's response to his mother's sacrifices.
His Mother cared so much about escaping the slums so that her child could live a decent life that she took part in illegal activity to support David in a prestigious school, hell David was a straight A student. So why is he stepping out of line and drawing unwanted attention when he should be keeping his head down, graduate, and secure a decent job?
Instead he got in fights, stepped out of line and made horrible decisions that lead to him being expelled. Couldn't he just supress his impulse control to reflect his mother's sacrifices?
2. "Living up to Maine's expectations"
This one really infuriated me. Maine went cyberpsycho because he refused to ease off on the chrome that resulted in a traumatic experience for his entire team and family. Even despite this, after the timeslip when Lucy or Rebecca politely asks him to take a break, he refuses despite seeing first hand what happened to Maine..?
From what we saw, David was in a good enough financial position to afford a pretty luxurious high rise apartment and the same also probably goes for his crew. At this point, its logical to assume they have enough savings to lie low, get some rest and then get back into it. But David pushes forward for god knows what reason when symptoms start arising. Did Maine's sacrifice, death, and example not mean anything to him?
3. Thinking he is special just because he has some added resistance to cyber ware.
Really dont need much explanation for this one. Trying to be a main character when in reality he was just an ant to these multi billion dollar companies with zero ethics or morals. Why would you ever try to be on their radar as a target? Just a big fish in a small pond and he thinks he can change the world :|
All in all, I'm honestly glad this story did not go the generic route of some protagonist with plot armour somehow overthrowing multi billion dollar corporations due to sheer luck or narrative, and it instead shows just how powerless and irrelevant he truly was.