I am surprised with how many people in this thread are equating mountain climbing with techbro culture. Really? How are those related? The fact that some techbros climb some mountains for fun?
How about the millions of people in rural counties and developing countries without access to vehicles who rely on walking across difficult terrain to make deliveries / get to work / get to school / visit family? Are they also techbros? My grandfather was an electrician in Albania and he would regularly walk dozens of miles on foot including through mountain ranges in order to get between jobs. Granted, this was dozens of years ago, but there's no reason to believe there isn't someone doing the same thing today.
If anything your own upper middle class bias is showing here, because you assume that everyone who navigates terrain is doing so for fun and not because they don't have other options.
Generally, it is the upper middle class that travel to different countries to go hiking. The lower class aren’t traveling to Japan to hike Mt Fuji. Also, hiking Mt. Fuji requires some care.
It's a behavioral shibboleth. They don't hike for pleasure or genuine reasons. They hike so that they can post a picture on Instagram. It's just a thing you do as part of the bland, petty, superficial, materialistic upper middle class bubble.
As someone with family members who immensely enjoy hiking for non-status related reasons, I can confirm you are entirely incorrect. They started in a pre-Internet era and as far as I know, haven't changed their motivations since.
Researching, travelling to and from the mountain, buying and maintaining equipment, and getting training for mountain climbing all cost time and money. Techbros have at least the latter in great abundance.
How about the millions of people in rural counties and developing countries without access to vehicles who rely on walking across difficult terrain to make deliveries / get to work / get to school / visit family? Are they also techbros? My grandfather was an electrician in Albania and he would regularly walk dozens of miles on foot including through mountain ranges in order to get between jobs. Granted, this was dozens of years ago, but there's no reason to believe there isn't someone doing the same thing today.
If anything your own upper middle class bias is showing here, because you assume that everyone who navigates terrain is doing so for fun and not because they don't have other options.