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Alright, there's a lot more to respond than I can physically cram into a post, but I'm back home so I can explain everything regarding /nasfaqg/ and tech.
First, a bit of a context for the initial proposal:
- 1750's were chosen as the 'average' tech era.
- Despite that, other threads commonly pushed their technology to 1820's, so 1800's became the de-facto 'average'.
- It was agreed upon that the tech levels are not realistic and that due to the punk historic-ness of the setting they are usually somewhat 'equalized' in terms of impact.
- It was right after the /infinity/ came out of isolation, which is why the disadvantages listed are, as some anon pointed out, "how does /nasfaqg/ stay together" Spoiler: It doesn't. It's essentially hundreds of corporation-states in a land called /nasfaqg/, it's as decentralized as something can be without calling it 'anarchy'.
- By that point, the tech has been shifted two times. At first, it was set roughly in 1450's. So, /nasfaqg/ has adopted a Venice-like aesthetic. Then, it was set in 1600's. So, /nasfaqg/ moved onto more Netherlands-like aesthetic and culture. The final tech shift was pushed for by /infinity/ and is the one that remains today, up to 1750's average tech. At that point, we've set our foot in the ground and just went for Victorian England aesthetics.
- Critically, REALLY CRITICALLY, you need to understand what NASFAQ is: it's a Hololive fan game that mimics the contemporary stock market and draws partially from modern /biz/ culture in terms of presentation. It's filled to the brim with coders, Excel spreadsheets, and bots. It has its own thread OC "loreposts", which are short stories set in /nasfaqg/, in which it often is portrayed as a cyberpunk corporate dystopia. If /nasfaqg/ could adopt any kind of aesthetic disregarding the rest of Vitubia, it'd be either a modern stock market or cyberpunk dystopia. We've only adapted those historical aethetics despite not making sense for what the thread or the game is as a compromise, focusing on the theme of "making money", which means trade.
It's an extremely fractured society which, in many ways, operates somewhat similar to how anarcho-capitalists /imagine/ their "state" would work (I completely disregard realism here, since I obviously don't support that IRL).
Now, the question is, "what makes /nasfaqg/ rich". Is it trade? Trade is good, but /nasfaqg/ doesn't collect strait tolls and follows the principles of free trade. Is it abundant natural resources? /nasfaqg/ has a raw resource deficit without many self-extracted resources - things like foods or materials are imported in. It's the processed goods and services that are imported out, a service-based economy. If there's no inherent advantage from location, no inherent advantage from resources, no inherent advantage from holding markets captive, then why would anyone buy anything from /nasfaqg/ over domestic companies? The answer simply has to be: those companies produce really good, unique products at high prices. They offer luxury goods and usually don't compete with local markets. They have some kind of know-how advantage that lets them turn profit.
In-lore, it's usually that a company specializes in /something/ that gives them the edge. It's not that the entire nation has everything futuristic, but rather that individual company-states hold a single distinguishing characteristic that they will paranoically guard until their deaths.
Now, seeing the state of the thread and that it has rubber-banded back to 1750's proper, I would say that the "1800 baseline, 1850 average, 1880 specialized" proposal is too much. It should be "1750 baseline, 1800 "average", 1880 specialized", and this I'll change without any further deliberation or explanation, since this is just correcting for the current state of the threads. Please note that "average" doesn't mean that the tech is widespread either, or that it's necessarily available on the consumer market.
This tech advancement is offset primarily by two things: lack of availability due to paranoia over letting it fall into the hands of others and how fractured and unwilling to cooperate /nasfaqg/ corporations generally are, with just about two exceptions of mega-mega conglomerates in the game.
Those aren't band-aid fixes. Those are literally calques of the thread culture.
To give Tripoint as an example: it specializes mostly in modelling using precision engineering, and financial theory. It leverages both of those things to a fraction of their potential since it keeps them both a secret: anything akin to an analytical engine would be kept a secret and closely guarded (and besides, I mostly meant for using them to solve calculus rather than being genuine programmable analogue computers).
The impact of that technology is curbed massively, and its leakage into the world is basically nonexistant due to the two factors outlined above.
