[omni]

It's a cliché not because it's a vision of the future, but because it's a good filmmaking technique that lets the audience easily see what's going on when you have characters interacting with tiny pocket screens. Without transparent screens, you'd need to do something like what the recent Sherlock series did and have giant text bubbles pop up on the screen or something, which would not fit with the aesthetic of a show like The Expanse.