One of my all time favorite series. The technological reference to Apple, and other tech like Be Corporation was ahead of it's time and was a technologist dream.
Same with the cyberpunk literature like Cyberia and the metaverse.
The whole show goes into deep psychological analysis about belief and technology as perceptions of alternative realities. In Lain the world works as an operating system where everyone is a process (just like Unix and Matrix and Tron) and super users break to be able to manipulate process at will.
Oh, right, I hadn't thought of the Matrix! This series really was way ahead of its time!
Actually there was a Lain-Matrix connection. The wachowsky brothers admitted they took inspiration from Lain and ghost in the shell.
https://www.giantfreakinrobot.com/ent/serial-experiments-lain-anime.html
Wow, it's great to know all these interesting facts, thanks so much for sharing!