So what does it even mean, "banned"?

Exactly that. Or rather, that it WAS banned. Here's the thing:

Netrunning mechanics is literal dungeon crawling, and I find it pretty hard to implement netrunning exactly as it is described in source material - it takes time and effort to build datafortresses, create traps and virtual enemies, and there's no guarantee players won't avoid it in the end. It's true for all the handcrafted world parts, of course, but meatspace IS UNAVOIDABLE

So I won't be creating Data Fortresses. Would that render Netrunner useless and unplayable? Hell no! See, I'm not too good at technobabble, but I know that cyberspace can be interpreted as a Virtual Reality experience. As a matter of fact, in 2022 we have a solid image of what VR can be - add a bit of old-school TRON visuals on top, and remember that any sufficiently advanced technology can be easily confused with higher powers - and voila - a badass Netrunner defeats literal firewalls with technomagic - programs for spells and code for sacred texts, memory for mana and so on. Of course, you don't HAVE TO go to cyberspace, if you like your screens better - go for it, buddy... But you wouldn't be competing on even grounds with the rest of the hacker community that way

But that still leaves us wiith the problem of divided spotlight - going back and forth from slow battles (or is it just my players?) to virtual world and back breaks the dynamics somewhat... To that question I still have no answer. Maybe because I haven't been a Ref for a while, or that at first I did literally BAN the Netrunner archtype for my players - so my experience is limited on that topic, and I'm rambling for nothing while old and wise Refs manage everything easily - good for them.

But if you will find yourself playing with me, remember that the world is unfair, and things will happen in the cyberspace that will be very much out of your control, whether you are a Net person or not.

Why bother playing a Runner then?

Good question. I... I'm not sure. As Cyberpunk 2020 was designed in the 80-s, when - important - the Internet didn't exist - it values INFORMATION as one of the most valuable recources. Many classes have ways to collect information - the Fixers are all about it if you ask me - but the humble Netrunner excels in it, surfing the world warm web and easily accessing the most obscure data

And of course there is a famous scene of a hot-handed hacker, plugged into the wall in a superscraper, while his armed and dangerous buddies keep him safe under corporate security fire... This is a stamp of Cyberpunk as a genre and there's hardly a way to avoid this situation

Or so one would think