Kobaltjak saidHave the numbers exploded in the last decade? Not sure how one would measure that.
There may be more room for dystopian fiction, in the American market at least, because of an increasing acceptance of speculative fiction, which used to be fairly commonly marginalized as fantasy or sci fi.
There's certainly been a big increase in dissatisfaction with the status quo on from people across the political spectrum, and dystopian fiction is very often a means of pointing out the (apparently) logical consequences of a prevailing or emerging mindset.
Being a fan on the genre, I was reading about it on the Internet and came across a list on dystopian literature on wiki. There seemed to be a lot more in the 2000s to present that earlier. Also there have been some quite high profile works in the last few years. These spring to mind:
Never Let Me Go - Kazuo Ishiguro
The Road - Cormac McCarthy
Hunger Games - Suzanne Collins
I think your final point sums it up nicely.
GAMRican saidDystopian fiction is a third order simulacra.
What makes you say this?