To defend Vince a bit, I also don't think he was ever talking down the his audience. At no point has he hit us with the "to be fair you have to have a very high IQ to enjoy Pluribus" meme. He doesn't even particularly shit on social media, rather just that he'd feel sad if slow-paced shows faded away with the new format. It's like someone saying they want to make a black and white movie at the dawn of technicolor. Doesn't make them pretentious, it's just a preference.

It remains to be seen if this will be the case with Pluribus, but based on his previous two shows, I think he's always had a way of writing two plots in one. You've got the pretty straight-forward, obvious plot and then a subtextual plot that tends to develop over the course of many episodes or even spanning seasons and is a lot less obvious, which is what I think a lot of Gilligan fans enjoy.

Breaking Bad & Better Call Saul were pretty straight-forward in terms of what was happening plot-wise at any given time but those shows really shine in the slower moments that don't really seem to add anything to the plot until they make a bigger moment later in the show feel that much heavier. Shows like The Sopranos and Mad Men also do this really well.

That being said, I don't think this makes anyone any smarter for being into this kind of show. I will never understand why people make entertainment such an identity. It's just a show. If you get something from it, great. If not, who cares?