Ohh man, for me it was EXACTLY the opposite. Daemon was one of the finest examples of a book in the cybercrime genre. It was one of those "Black Mirror" style entertainment: Take known tech and push it towards dystopia style stories. Daemon was was super-fun, and absolutely un-putdownable (Literally read it in a single sitting IIRC).
Almost all the tech (Self driving cars, distributed systems, daemons that can self replicate (viruses), collaborative systems, a Darknet all exist in some form or the other today! Is it fantasy? Duh!
Is it a fun read for someone who works building these exact systems fora living? Definitely!