"People on a chip" isn't it at all, this nicely foresees "cloud computing" (or re-projects timesharing) in a global pool of compute resources purchased by fractional time at a floating market rate.

• with the ability to "copy" your brainstate to live in a computer after death, we have the possibility of dying before our expected accrued wealth at old age materializes, leading to a slum state of infrequently being able to buy compute.
• some projects are worth temporarily cornering the compute market, putting a constraint on even the wealthy copies expectation of simulated time - one in the story is modeling climate interventions, a nice touch.