Chapter 143: Countdown to the Release of the Magical Connector

So even after the transition, users likely would not feel betrayed or anything like that. Still, once something that had been free started charging money, it was inevitable that some people would leave.

“Once the Magical Connector is introduced, communication fees will drop drastically anyway, so even after we begin charging service fees, users will actually be able to use it more cheaply overall. I don’t think the number of users will decrease that much.”

“Really?”

Giselle blinked her large owl-like eyes at her subordinate’s words and asked again. These days, she had been having nightmares. Nightmares where the bustling Spirit Space instantly turned into a ghost town the moment it became a paid service.

“Yes. In the survey we conducted previously, more than 43% answered that they would continue using it even after monetization. And 82% of complaints about Spirit Space were about communication fees. Once the Magical Connector is introduced, there’s even a chance the number of users could increase instead.”

“That would be a relief, but…”

However, the introduction of the Magical Connector also carried a source of anxiety.

The cost of the device itself.

In the long run, the monthly costs would become dramatically cheaper, but the absolutely non-cheap price of the machine would inevitably become an entry barrier.

Ras knew this as well and had tried his best to lower the price as much as possible. But because it was a magical device, there was a limit to how much the manufacturing cost could be reduced through mass production.

Even if they did not aim for huge profits, just accounting for distribution margins made it difficult to sell below 700 Del. Back when Schutz sold them online for 1,000 Del each, it was not as though he had been making outrageous profits. Of course, the Magical Connectors Ras recreated had been improved and were manufactured properly in a factory, so the production costs could not be considered identical.

“700 Del is expected to create too much psychological resistance.”

After hearing Giselle’s report, Ras roughly scratched the front of his hair. Still, he understood.

Spirit Space was popular, but it was not yet recognized as something essential like the internet on Earth. To people, it was merely one form of entertainment content. So if the device required merely to connect to it cost 700 Del, rather than the usage fee itself, it was understandable that people would resist.

Compared to Earth, it was essentially a type of modem or LAN card that cost around 700,000 won. Of course, among hardcore users, there would definitely be buyers, but the internet was only meaningful as a business if it attracted as many users as possible.

(Translator’s Note: Modem — Communication device that converts digital computer signals for transmission over communication lines; widely used for early internet access on Earth.)

(Translator’s Note: ‍‍‌‌⁠​​⁠‌​​‍​​‍​‌​⁠‍‌‍⁠⁠‌⁠‌‍‌‍‌‌‌‍⁠​‌​‌​‌‍‌‌‌⁠‍​​‌‍⁠‌‌⁠⁠LAN Card — Short for Local Area Network card, a hardware component used to connect computers to network systems such as the internet.)

“What price do users think is appropriate?”

“According to the survey results, around 400 Del.”

Naturally, people preferred cheaper prices the more affordable they became. But the “400 Del” Giselle mentioned referred to the point in the graph analysis where psychological resistance dropped sharply.

“400 ‍‍‌‌⁠​​⁠‌​​‍​​‍​‌​⁠‍‌‍⁠⁠‌⁠‌‍‌‍‌‌‌‍⁠​‌​‌​‌‍‌‌‌⁠‍​​‌‍⁠‌‌⁠⁠Del…”

But they could not sell it at a loss. This was a business, and it had to generate profit. And Ras knew just how rapidly and widely the internet had spread on Earth.

Which meant the Magical Connector would sell just as widely. No matter how rich Ras was, enduring losses on that scale would be difficult. There was no reason to accept such losses either.

After pondering for a long while, Ras suddenly asked something else.

“By the way, what did we set the packet limit to?”

“Ah. For now, we decided on 6 gigabytes per month.”

This was related to the pricing model. Ras had decided to use a flat-rate subscription system where users paid a fixed monthly fee. In his judgment, one of the major reasons the internet had spread and settled so quickly in Korea was because users could pay a fixed amount and then use the internet freely without worrying about additional charges.

Of course, from the perspective of immediate profitability, a metered billing system charging based on usage would be better. But Ras had decided to think further ahead.

He believed it would be better to rapidly create an internet world first, then make money through related businesses afterward.

Or even if that were not the case, collecting small fees from 100,000 users every month seemed far less profitable than collecting money monthly from 100 million users.

However, he did not blindly implement flat-rate billing. Ras had not studied economics particularly seriously, but he had at least heard of the Tragedy of the Commons.

(Translator’s Note: Tragedy of the Commons — Economic and social theory describing how shared resources become overused and depleted when individuals act according to self-interest without regulation.)

It referred to how something shared by everyone and made cheap or free would inevitably be overused until it was quickly exhausted. And this applied to the internet as well.

This concerned heavy users.

The internet was ultimately built on physical infrastructure. That meant data transmission had limits.

In truth, the limits of the Magical Connector itself were still unknown. But Ras’s servers were not magical. Even if the Magical Connector itself could theoretically transmit unlimited amounts of data, it meant nothing if Ras’s servers could not handle all those connections.

And if some heavy users consumed those available resources recklessly like water, ordinary users would end up restricted in their own internet use.

Of course, since these were paying users, Ras would try solving the issue by expanding infrastructure. But that would inevitably require raising service fees in proportion to the increased costs. In the end, ordinary users would suffer.

“6 gigabytes…”

“Yes. It might seem excessive, but we judged that users would need at least this much to comfortably enjoy Spirit Space. Of course, this figure was also calculated with our server capacity in mind.”

And considering the transmission speed of the Magical Connector, reaching 6 gigabytes would require receiving data continuously for ten hours a day. Simply connecting to Spirit Space, reading bulletin boards, and playing games would never fill it up even if someone did it for twenty-four hours straight.

So for ordinary users, it was effectively unlimited.

“But why did you ask about the packet limit?”

Giselle thought hard about Ras’s intentions, but since she could not figure them out, she eventually asked directly. It was not particularly rude. Ras might be the chairman, but he was not some king.

If anything, Giselle wanted to understand his intentions so she could do her best.

“Ah. It’s because of the Magical Connector pricing problem. If flat-rate service doesn’t create major issues, then I think there may be a way.”

“Huh? What way?”

At that, the owl lady widened her already round eyes even further in surprise. From Giselle’s perspective, she had not been able to see any solution at all.

But Ras could find one through his memories of Earth. It was not even difficult. It was a common business practice there.

“We use contracts.”

“Contracts?”

Of course, this world also had the concept of contracts. But they were used more commonly ‍‍‌‌⁠​​⁠‌​​‍​​‍​‌​⁠‍‌‍⁠⁠‌⁠‌‍‌‍‌‌‌‍⁠​‌​‌​‌‍‌‌‌⁠‍​​‌‍⁠‌‌⁠⁠between companies rather than between companies and consumers, so it was probably difficult for them to think of it immediately.

“Yes. We offer discounts on the price of the Magical Connector only to users who promise to use Spirit Space long-term, perhaps around three years.”

“Ah!”

It was not particularly complicated. Even if not through contracts exactly like this, offering discounts to bulk buyers was already common in this world.

Moreover, Ras planned to slightly raise the service fee instead. So in practice, it would become a form of installment payment. Since the service fee itself had not yet been finalized anyway, it was not as though he was scamming anyone.

“That’s a really excellent method.”

Giselle admired it greatly. The money would come in later, but they could still avoid losses while reducing users’ psychological resistance.

“I’m glad it doesn’t sound too bad.”

Ras felt somewhat embarrassed by the admiration. To him, it was simply a common method he had frequently encountered on Earth.

In any case, once the pricing problem was solved, the release of the Magical Connector entered its final countdown stage.

Meta Hardware began a massive advertising campaign. In fact, not only Meta Hardware, but all of Ras’s companies and even partner companies were mobilized.

The response was tremendous.

“You can use Spirit Space unlimited for only 22 Del a month?!”

One reader who saw the article in Gamers widened his eyes, wondering if he had read the amount incorrectly. Even using it for just two hours after work could result in 200 Del worth of phone charges, so 22 Del was naturally shocking.

And since most users had been suppressing their usage because of communication fees, the word “unlimited” sounded irresistibly attractive.

Of course, they had expected the machine itself would not be free, and they were startled by the 750 Del price. But then the contract plan offered by Spirit Space drew their attention again.

“400 Del? About two months’ worth of service fees?”

400 Del was not a small amount of money. But it was not impossible to pay. Moreover, because they had already been shown the 750 Del price beforehand, the new price, which was only about half of that, created the psychological effect of seeming cheap.

And besides these pricing policies, Spirit Space created all kinds of advertisements.

Among them, the most representative were the large-scale promotions for chatting and data transmission.

“Communicate through text instead of telephones?”

Zeroton had never been particularly interested in Spirit Space. But his eyes happened to fall upon an advertisement flyer posted on the street, and he ended up reading it.

He at least knew what chatting was. And he had once thought it might actually be a decent way to communicate. While telephones were intuitive, text had many advantages when it came to conveying information.

Surprisingly, many people also felt exhausted by phone calls. Zeroton was one of those types. He could not understand why people spent so much time talking uselessly when what they needed to say took less than five minutes.

So chatting, which conveyed only the necessary information through emotionless text, sounded rather appealing to him.

But in the past, it had simply been too expensive, so he had given up. Yet now, it claimed he could use it unlimited for only 22 Del per month, making it even cheaper than telephone fees.

And this Magical Connector was not that different from a telephone anyway. Telephones themselves were still in the middle of spreading throughout this world.

And naturally, everything was expensive during its early introduction period.

Even in Korea during the 1970s, there had supposedly been a time when a household telephone cost as much as a house in Seoul. Of course, Korea had been a poor country back then, so cutting-edge electronic devices were even more expensive compared to other nations.

In any case, since telephones in the Republic of Smite cost around 500 Del, if people viewed the Magical Connector as a similar kind of device, then it was not an overwhelmingly unacceptable price.

And besides messengers, many people also became interested in data transmission.

Partly thanks to Ras’s efforts, computer distribution rates were increasing rapidly.

Until now, the only way to exchange data had been through diskettes, which were inconvenient, expensive, and unreliable. Cases where someone painstakingly copied data only to discover the diskette was broken afterward were extremely common.

So the idea of safely exchanging data at the speed of light naturally drew attention.

In this way, Spirit Space’s advertisements attracted the attention of many people.

But not everyone reacted positively.

This was not referring to people who simply disliked new technology. Those types always existed.

The real problem was people, or forces, who believed their own interests were being threatened and actively tried to block its introduction.

“Telecommunications companies?”

“Yes. And it seems the telephone manufacturers are joining forces with them as well.”

Whenever launching a product, it was necessary to examine whether there might be legal or political issues. In the early days, they had not paid much ‍‍‌‌⁠​​⁠‌​​‍​​‍​‌​⁠‍‌‍⁠⁠‌⁠‌‍‌‍‌‌‌‍⁠​‌​‌​‌‍‌‌‌⁠‍​​‌‍⁠‌‌⁠⁠attention to such things, but after the company had grown to a certain extent, they had established departments specifically dedicated to handling those areas.