>It's one of the few pieces of fiction I've ever seen that really grapples with the idea of paradise and what meaning life can have when all obstacles are removed.
I'm not so sure about this. It's hard not to see these kinds of "actually, paradise actually wouldn't be so great" takes as the ultimate sour grapes. See also: "actually, immortality would be bad".
I suspect we can't even really discuss what "paradise" would be like or how people would react to it because it would be so different from all of previous existence. The best we can do, as in this story, is "the current world minus the bad stuff" and go from there.
I'd argue it doesn't at all say paradise wouldn't be great -- plenty of people are content with their lives, and there's plenty of options to functionally die or reduce your level of consciousness below one that will really be able to care about the future or be bored.
Rather, it's a nihilistic dream from that place, free and limitless cyberspace; a heaven.
A timeless place at the end of history.
Perhaps read the companion piece (A Casino Odyssey in Cyberspace), which illustrates how one doesn't need to spend centuries to become aware of the Meaninglessness of life, and yet simultaneously how Meaning can be created for individuals even at the end of history.
I think a more interesting avenue to explore is the author's particular leaning toward sadism, as I find it a little unclear if his view is one in which sadism and domination is merely more interesting to explore for the stories, or if his particular view is that the most undiluted pleasure left in cyberspace is sadism or domination.
Something which, for as terrible as it may sound, I think we can actually find possible signs of -- moreso Domination (or far less ominously: Mastery) than Sadism.
I'll cut my comment short-er about here, but those intrigued by the idea can also explore the fact that in MoPI a character like Caroline isn't actually sadistic like many of those she meets, but absolutely spent centuries mastering skills and keeping busy with simple competition against others.
Likewise she ties into my earlier points about Nihilism and Meaning, where it's pretty clear the ending is likely just the moment Prime Intellect's definitions of death blurred just as it also realized it could never make people like Caroline satisfied as long as she thinks she's in cyberspace. Notice she's engaged in many of the exact same activities she spent her time on in cyberspace and would have gladly been happy continuing on that way for countless centuries more while guiding her tribe lamenting her old age at the conclusion.
(Aside: wow I'm so happy to see MoPI mentioned somewhere! It always feels so little-known.)