No Pay, No Gain
A few days had passed. Yoo Jae-won's round of interviews across broadcasting stations, ID Group's advertising blitz, and the battle for public opinion on the internet were all drawing to a close. With sentiment solidifying and established politicians beginning to move, the fate of the abusing scandal had finally slipped from Yoo Jae-won's hands.
“You no longer need to worry about this, boss.”
At Remington’s confident declaration, Yoo Jae-won gave a satisfied nod. It was only natural. Washington politicians had been startled by talk of internet opinion manipulation and had launched full-scale discussions to draft related legislation. No politician, whether Republican or Democrat, welcomed a new variable capable of shaking the political landscape. The older senators in particular reacted with unusual fervor. Thanks to their long careers, they had plenty of familiar faces in traditional media they could actually talk to. The internet, however, with its countless communities demanding constant attention, left them utterly clueless about how to respond.
The points Jae-won had hammered home in every television interview landed perfectly with the public: that infringing on others’ rights before enjoying freedom of expression was unacceptable, and that fair play mattered. People who had been burned by exaggerated advertisements or content disguised as information cheered the loudest. Simply requiring ads to clearly identify themselves as advertisements would naturally resolve many problems. The only real holdouts were those profiting from ads that didn’t look like ads or from abusing the system, but the issue was so clear-cut that even they couldn’t openly push back.
“In Korea, we have a saying: hwaryongjeomjeong. It means that no matter how well the rest of the painting is done, without a perfect finishing touch, the whole work falls flat.”
“Of course, sir. I will see it through to the end with everything I have.” Remington thumped his chest firmly as he made the promise.
Since the Capitol in Washington DC had begun to move, the matter had officially left Yoo Jae-won’s hands. What mattered now was that America was a country where lobbying was perfectly legal. And Yoo Jae-won possessed an overflowing supply of the ultimate resource: money.
“I will recruit the finest lobbyists worthy of ID Group’s stature. We will ensure the legislation emerges exactly as you originally envisioned, boss.”
“Contact me the moment anything happens.”
“Understood. And even if nothing occurs, I will provide regular reports regardless.”
Yoo Jae-won had spoken as though he were stepping away from the company, but his true plan was simply to work from the study at home as usual. Should any variables arise, he could rush out at a moment’s notice. He only said such things because he had a massive backlog of work and wanted no disturbances for the time being.
That work, naturally, was software development. Many of ID Group’s programs had reached the threshold for large-scale version upgrades. Development of the Tiffany Phone and its mobile processors, the Android operating system, ID Office, Nextcom, and the numerous games being created by studios under ID Entertainment were all approaching their scheduled completion dates.
Since everything had already reached or surpassed the alpha stage, Yoo Jae-won intended to participate personally from this point forward, pushing the quality to its absolute limit. The next Android operating system in particular would incorporate bold new features tailored to significantly more powerful hardware.
“Ah, this feels good.”
Back home, Yoo Jae-won settled into his usual spot in the study and let out a quiet murmur. From the trip to Korea through the abusing scandal, the past few weeks had offered no breathing room. Returning to his normal routine, sitting in the study in comfortable clothes, finally made him feel alive again.
After taking a brief moment to collect himself, he turned on the computer with a tap of his toe. The large Trinitron monitor flickered to life, displaying the BIOS screen. After the noisy whir of the hard disk, the login screen appeared. Only after entering his ID and password did the desktop finally emerge.
“Hmm. Two minutes and twenty-five seconds.”
That was the boot time. From the moment his toe pressed the power button, Yoo Jae-won had been watching the desk clock, timing exactly how long it took to finish booting.
In the early-to-mid twenty-first century—around 2020—you could use a computer almost the instant you turned it on. By comparison, current technology was painfully behind, forcing users to wait two minutes and twenty-five seconds.
That didn’t mean there were no solutions.
“A maximum power-saving feature would make it possible.”
The technology would require cooperation from CPU and motherboard manufacturers. If a tiny trickle of electricity continued feeding the memory and cache even when the system was powered down, the desktop could appear immediately upon startup.
At present, power management features were barely implemented. The best available options were a monitor screensaver and basic power-saving mode. To shut down the computer, users had to park the hard drive and physically press the power button. For the system to shut down simply by clicking a desktop icon, the hardware itself needed to provide proper support.
Yoo Jae-won planned to aggressively pursue collaboration with hardware manufacturers this time, maximizing the operating system’s quality in the process.
“Shall we see how far the Redmond team has gotten?”
Even though Android Company had spun off from ID Technology, the name “Redmond team” still rolled naturally off his tongue. Without delay, he connected to the FTP server that hosted the Android developer builds and began downloading the latest version. Naturally, this was not a public server—it was known only to a select few.
“The file size is over two hundred megabytes.”
Compared to version 2.0, the capacity was on an entirely different scale. This was expected; Jae-won had ordered that fonts from other countries be supported with beautiful outline typography starting with this release, dramatically increasing the space required for font files.
The reason was simple. They were now in the internet age. He wanted users to browse websites in any language worldwide without needing to install additional language packs. Currently, users had to download separate packs and manually configure character encoding, or they would see broken text. The next Android would handle characters through Unicode, supporting every major language simultaneously.
“Finished.”
The download completed while he was lost in thought. Yoo Jae-won started the installation immediately. Rather than overwriting the current 2.0 installation, he connected an empty hard disk and installed the new version there. Installation would take roughly thirty minutes, so he opened the web browser and navigated to Nextcom. Thirty minutes of internet surfing would pass in the blink of an eye.
It was also entertaining to see how much Nextcom had evolved.
“Whoa. It’s changed quite a bit.”
Nextcom’s main page was renewed daily. Frequently used sections like search, email, news, and weather remained in fixed positions, but everything else rotated through experimental layouts.
“Marvel versus DC!”
Among the new services, one immediately caught his eye: a comics tab titled Marvel vs DC. It was a project he had ordered during a previous executive meeting, and the results had finally materialized.
Yoo Jae-won clicked without hesitation. The page refreshed, transforming the screen. Captain America appeared on the right, Superman on the left, facing each other, while representative content from both companies was neatly arranged on either side.
It was a groundbreaking service that let users read the comics directly in their web browser. The selection was not the latest issues, however—most were older releases. The most recent material available was from mid-January.
“There’s roughly a one-month gap from the newest volumes.”
After roughly gauging the page and user reactions, Yoo Jae-won opened ID Talk and ran a search. Reports from the presidents of Nextcom and ID Entertainment appeared instantly. He opened the one from ID Entertainment first, as they had led the negotiations.
Stephen Barber, President of ID Entertainment, had included the reason for the delay in his report. Both companies had refused real-time serialization of the newest issues, fearing it would hurt physical book sales. Looking at the major points of the licensing agreement, the comic publishers had granted ID Entertainment the rights for online serialization and film adaptation of their libraries. In return, they would receive royalties whenever those rights were exercised.
Based on that license, ID Entertainment granted Nextcom exclusive rights for online serialization while planning to approach Hollywood studios for film adaptations. The total contract value was $340 million—$160 million for Marvel and $180 million for DC. In early 1994, Superman and Batman were far more popular than Captain America or Iron Man, which explained DC’s larger share. There was also a clause granting the publishers ten percent of profits if any film adaptation proved successful at the box office.
He had approved the deal based solely on the headline figure due to more urgent matters at the time, but a closer look revealed it was an overwhelmingly favorable contract. Of course, it wasn’t Yoo Jae-won who had been taken advantage of—the two comic companies had been.
Comic-based films were currently struggling due to technological limitations, but once computer graphics advanced, they would explode into massive hits. The added value created by maximizing one-source multi-use across related industries would be immeasurable. In Hollywood, however, gossip circulated that Jae-won—fresh off Android’s astronomical IPO—didn’t understand the value of money and was spending it like water on personal hobbies. The reaction to this particular deal had been largely negative.
“The results will speak for themselves.”
Nextcom’s online comic service was merely the bait. The real prize was the film rights. If they held onto them until computer technology caught up, the game was already won.
Ding~!
He was still surfing when a cheerful chime sounded. The developer version had finished installing before he could even finish exploring Nextcom.
“That ding-ding alarm needs to be changed to voice guidance too.”
Grumbling, he left himself a quick memo, stopped browsing, and shut down the computer. After rebooting into BIOS, he set the boot priority to the hard disk containing the developer version and restarted.
The developer version’s Android logo appeared on screen. It was a short animation of the operating system’s mascot—an SD-style robot diving into a pile of parts and rummaging around. The animation had zero functional purpose; it existed purely for fun. Yet its presence dramatically increased user affection. Android Company even maintained a dedicated department for the robot logo, treating it with special care.
The next Android would place even greater emphasis on visual elements, so additional development resources would be poured into the mascot as well.
The booted developer version was clearly different. Instead of the traditional desktop, the background was an artistic photograph of the hills behind Deokjin-ri or a California vineyard. The image had earned a Guinness World Record as the most-owned digital photo on the planet. The developer build, however, used a geometric pattern created with computer graphics.
The important part was that the geometric pattern, though moving slowly and gently, was alive.
“Visually, it passes with flying colors.”
While Android 2.0 had been static, the next version’s core concept was a dynamic and intelligent operating system. The moving desktop perfectly embodied that vision.
It looked pleasant, of course, but offered no practical function. It consumed memory and taxed the VGA’s processing power, so power users obsessed with squeezing out every last resource would undoubtedly dislike it. For ordinary users, however, the dynamic wallpaper instantly conveyed the feeling of having upgraded, delivering maximum psychological impact.
Besides, it wasn’t a feature that constantly devoured resources. It moved during idle periods but paused and returned memory when heavy applications ran, ensuring no impact on overall performance. Small monitoring graphs showing CPU usage, memory status, and component temperatures could also be displayed on the dynamic desktop. These elements had required a separate monitoring program in Android 2.0; now they appeared by default.
Users could even set cooling fan speeds based on temperature or CPU usage, striking a balance between noise and thermal performance. The “smart” label had not been added lightly.
“There’s still plenty of room for improvement.”
Although the dynamic desktop was quite polished, many areas still needed work. Yoo Jae-won gripped the mouse firmly, ready to examine whether his previous instructions had been properly implemented.
Trring!
—Are you busy? I’m not interrupting, am I?
“No! I’m working from home right now.”
—That’s a relief. But why did you suddenly disappear from ID Talk?
“Ah, I’m testing the Android developer version right now.”
Because it was installed on a fresh hard disk, no other applications were present. The drivers weren’t fully configured either, so there was no sound. The plug-and-play functionality was scheduled for inclusion in this version as well, but it required hardware manufacturer support. Applying it to legacy devices without proper cooperation would cause problems no matter how robust the operating system was.
—Oh, so the next Android version is coming out soon?
“Soon might be an exaggeration. If we’re fast, around this winter. At the latest, we’re aiming for early next year.”
If it had been something as simple as Android Alpha, a month would have been more than enough—even working alone. But computer architecture had grown far more complex, and the number of things requiring support had multiplied. Collaboration with hardware manufacturers was now essential. No matter how superhuman his development skills were, he could no longer finish projects at the breakneck pace he once had.
Still, completing a massive operating system of several hundred megabytes this quickly remained an impressive feat.
“So what’s going on?”
—Do you remember the promise we made last time?
Promise? Yoo Jae-won’s mind spun as he tried to recall any recent date plans or anniversaries. Then one thing clicked. He had been invited to a gathering with Tiffany’s maternal family.
“Are you talking about the family event?”
—Yes! That’s the one. The date’s been set for February 26th and 27th. Does that work for you?
Checking the calendar, it was the last weekend of February.
“Of course! When you mentioned it before, I cleared my entire late-February schedule.”
He hadn’t merely cleared it—there were no scheduled tasks at all. With a mountain of development projects that only he could lead piling up, he had arranged for the executive team to handle routine matters while he focused solely on final approvals.
—Thanks. Just be at San Francisco International Airport by ten o’clock on the 26th.
“OK! Message received!”
It was true that attending Tiffany’s maternal family gathering felt slightly daunting. These weren’t even her parents but relatives on her mother’s side. He had never experienced anything like it in his previous life. Still, this would be a good opportunity to learn more about Tiffany and properly greet her extended family. Besides, unlike his previous life, he was hardly in a shabby position now.
With his current status, he had no fear of receiving poor treatment anywhere. Yoo Jae-won found himself hoping the day would arrive quickly.
After ending the call, he returned to work and immersed himself in examining the developer version. Time flowed steadily, and before he realized it, the last weekend of February had arrived.