N-Pay's Quiet Revolution
Mid-September 2003, during the Game War. Yoo Jae-won entered the country through Incheon International Airport for work.
Omnipotent! Omnia!
The first smartphone made with domestic technology!
Exceptional buyer benefits! Complimentary lifetime subscription to the refreshing music streaming service Lemon!
After completing all immigration procedures and passing through the arrivals gate, the first thing that caught his eye was a massive advertisement stretching from ceiling to floor.
"Hmm? Omnia?"
It was an ad for Omnia, the famous smartphone from Ilseong Electronics. He had heard the name even before his regression. Of course, never in a good way. It was a smartphone running Microsoft's mobile operating system, and despite the "smart" in its name, its performance had been sorely lacking. Advertising it as omnipotent had only invited ridicule. Even ten years after its release, many still remembered it as a notorious flop. Yoo Jae-won was no exception.
But this time was different.
"Ilseong Telecom acquired a company called Sky and developed the smartphone with it. Its performance is comparable to the Android S3," Kim Dae-seok explained when Yoo Jae-won showed interest in the Omnia ad.
Being on par with the latest Android S3 meant the name Omnia would not become the same laughingstock it had been before his regression. The specs Kim Dae-seok pulled up on his Android Pad confirmed it—the device was nearly identical to the S3. It used an M4A1 processor, had 1GB of RAM, and started with 16GB of storage. Naturally, it ran the mobile Android operating system, so it would not have felt out of place even if it had been called Galaxy instead of Omnia. Most importantly, its price was 20% lower than the Android S3 at $720, or around 800,000 won in Korean currency.
"At this level, it's among the top-tier compatible products."
After the decision to open the mobile Android ecosystem, major electronics companies worldwide had rushed to participate. In Korea, conglomerates like Ilseong and Geumseong had begun developing their own devices. That had been a year ago, and now, starting with Ilseong, products were finally appearing one after another.
"We'll need to stay on our toes."
As the company behind mobile Android, falling behind on compatible devices was unacceptable. Yet complacency was equally dangerous. Underestimating the compatible manufacturers would only allow them to catch up quickly. In his previous life, the Galaxy had been the flagship Android smartphone.
"But 'the first smartphone made with domestic technology'? That part feels off."
Domestic marketing at the airport. It was effective for stirring patriotism, yet fundamentally misleading. What exactly was domestic? The Android smartphone's operating system had been created by Yoo Jae-won himself. While much of the work on the current S3 version had been delegated to Android Inc. in Seattle, core technologies like the newly added artificial intelligence remained his creation. The same held true for the hardware. The key components of the S3—processor, memory, storage, and display—were all manufactured at ID Electronics' factories in Suwon and Daejeon. Most sensors originated from American source technology but were produced by Korean small and medium-sized enterprises. The only foreign-sourced parts were the motherboard, battery, Gorilla Glass, and specialty dyes. The motherboard came from Taiwan, the battery from Japan, and the Gorilla Glass and dyes from the United States.
Omnia used a similar component mix to the Android S3, differing only in its use of a domestically produced battery from Ilseong Chemical, a subsidiary of the Ilseong Group.
Although Yoo Jae-won had acquired U.S. citizenship for business reasons, he still identified as Korean. ID Group had significant operations in America, but it had started in Korea and maintained its headquarters there, so he considered it a Korean company. Ilseong's "domestic" marketing grated on him.
"I'll look into it in detail and report back."
Yoo Jae-won nodded and resumed walking, though his pace had slowed. The immigration area had offered some privacy, but stepping beyond it placed him in a public space. People who recognized him stared in surprise before pulling out their smartphones to take pictures. Thanks to the security team, who had anticipated this and formed a protective screen, no one rushed him, but nearly everyone captured his image. Yoo Jae-won smiled brightly at the sight. Most of the smartphones in their hands bore the ID logo. A significant number were the recently released S3 model. The same early-adopter enthusiasm he had witnessed at ID Software was now on full display at Incheon International Airport. Koreans' curiosity and adaptability toward new technology were truly world-class. The country had earned the title of the world's premier test-bed market, prompting many companies to open Korean branches to gauge response.
After graciously acknowledging the attention, Yoo Jae-won and his entourage boarded the waiting car and headed for Seoul. Their immediate destination was the ID Global Headquarters building, where he would receive a briefing from Vice Chairman Choi Kang-wook on current affairs before traveling to Daejeon to participate in the completion of the new semiconductor process. That was the purpose of his visit to Korea.
"Whoa."
As they entered downtown Seoul, Yoo Jae-won, who had been working on an iWorks laptop balanced on his knees, glanced out the window and let out an admiring exclamation. It was not because the autumn scenery had changed, nor because a new landmark had appeared. What drew his admiration was a string of advertisements, each printed on A4 paper and taped together.
We accept N-Pay!
He was reacting to the street vendors displaying signs announcing they accepted N-Pay, the service that had launched its second act at IDDC 2003.
"Hold on. Pull over for a moment."
Yoo Jae-won had the car stop.
"Shall I get some tteokbokki and odeng?"
Kim Dae-seok reacted immediately to the request, assuming Yoo Jae-won wanted to try the street food. But that was not the reason. Multiple vendors in a row were accepting N-Pay, not just one. Curious how they managed it without POS terminals, Yoo Jae-won took only Kim Dae-seok and approached a tteokbokki stall. He asked Kim Dae-seok to place the order using N-Pay.
"Two servings of tteokbokki and two servings of odeng, to go."
"Four thousand won!"
"Can I pay with N-Pay?"
"Ah, you too, young man? Then just scan this and send 40 points."
The woman handed over a laminated sheet of A4 paper with a QR code printed on it. The lamination was to prevent it from getting wet or torn, though it showed signs of frequent use. Kim Dae-seok immediately scanned the QR code with his smartphone. The N-Pay transfer screen appeared, he entered 40 points, and pressed send.
Ding!
Almost simultaneously with Kim Dae-seok pressing the button, an alarm sounded loudly from the woman's smartphone.
"It came through nicely. I'll root for your win!"
Instead of the usual "Enjoy your meal," the woman wished him luck in the draw. That single phrase resolved Yoo Jae-won's curiosity completely.
Back in the car, Yoo Jae-won shared the tteokbokki and odeng with Kim Dae-seok while reopening his iWorks laptop. The screen now displayed global aggregate data from the N-Pay servers rather than semiconductor metrics from the Suwon factory. Specifically, it showed the distribution of winners. As expected, the countries where N-Pay was active were the advanced economies in the G20. Korea, however, stood out prominently near the top. The data explained why. Before Yoo Jae-won announced N-Pay's second act at IDDC 2003, adoption had remained low. The large-scale daily giveaway event launched at the conference had rapidly increased users. The United States and Korea were now competing for first and second place, and the secret lay in the distribution of winners.
In the early days of the N-Pay lottery event, the user base had been tiny, so the odds of winning had been extremely high. Even now the probability remained better than a regular lottery, but back in early August it had exceeded one in a hundred. With users already present in Korea and the United States, many winners had emerged there. The problem was that entering the N-Pay lottery required actually using N-Pay, yet few offline locations accepted it. Using it only online did little to improve winning chances because the drawing algorithm minimized duplicate winners. The more one used N-Pay offline, the better. People with a knack for making money quickly caught on and began accepting N-Pay. Once they saw actual sales increases, neighboring vendors followed suit, and adoption spread rapidly. Stores with POS systems could upgrade their software easily, but street vendors who did not even accept cards solved the issue by printing their N-Pay addresses as QR codes. Unlike credit cards, N-Pay required only a few clicks to join, so even street vendors faced no barriers.
"This time we can expect real results, can't we?"
In his previous life, Korea had strangely struggled with fintech popularization. Even China had shifted from cash to electronic currency long ago, yet Korea had lagged far behind. Now that even street vendors accepted N-Pay, the future would clearly look different from the past.
A short while later, Yoo Jae-won's party arrived at the ID Global Headquarters building in Dogok-dong. Neither Vice Chairman Choi Kang-wook nor any executives came out to greet him in the lobby. Instead, the car drove straight into the underground parking garage, and they took the private elevator directly to the business floors. In the vice chairman's office, Yoo Jae-won met Choi Kang-wook and immediately received the status report.
ID Group's East Asia division was consistently green. Nearly every business sector showed steady growth, which also reflected the solid state of the Korean economy. Despite the IMF crisis, Korea had successfully ridden the IT revolution following the United States and was reaping major benefits from the semiconductor and smartphone industries. The contrast with Japan's ongoing stagnation was stark. Most economic indicators—stock indices, employment rates, unemployment rates—were healthy, and the overall social atmosphere was highly positive.
"The only problem is the National Assembly."
Yet whenever one looked at the political scene, Korea appeared precarious. The opposition parties had united in fierce criticism of the current administration, to the point where talk of economic collapse had surfaced. Back in the 2000 16th general election, the opposition had been split into two factions, each cultivating its own regional strongholds. The resulting grudges had been deep, leading to constant petty clashes. Meanwhile, the ruling party had maintained stable parliamentary operations through its coalition, allowing major political issues to pass without significant trouble.
"The President struck right at their reverse scale."
The sudden shift in the National Assembly's dynamics began when the Roh Moo-hyun administration started pushing for revisions to the Private School Act. During his private meeting with President Roh, Yoo Jae-won had advised that if the President wanted to experience the full force of vested-interest resistance, he should begin with education reform. President Roh had not dismissed the suggestion. He had launched a full-scale revision of the Private School Act. The core points were twofold: first, appointing government-recommended figures to the boards of private school foundations; second, adjusting government funding for corrupt or insolvent private schools. The goal was to realign the excessive authority that had allowed private school foundations to act unchecked with constitutional principles.
The moment this became known, the two opposition parties that had been at each other's throats suddenly united. One of the opposition's core support bases was the private school conglomerates. Adding to this was the National Unification Party, which former representative Lee In-je had led out of the ruling party along with his faction. There were also signs that another force would soon join: the "latter-term alliance" faction within the Democratic Party. Although they had not yet left the party, reconciliation with President Roh was already impossible. If this faction also broke away and joined the opposition, it would create a massive opposition bloc comparable to the ruling party's coalition with the National Unification Party. Furthermore, even conservative media outlets that had previously kept their heads down were now joining the chorus against the Private School Act revisions. The atmosphere was as if someone had stirred up a hornet's nest.
"Thanks to this, the Blue House has gained a clear sense of the strength of vested-interest resistance and is reportedly quite taken aback."
"So they're planning to ease up on the reform efforts?"
"Of course not. They've decided to tighten the legislative schedule even further."
The ruling party's ranks had not collapsed thanks to the coalition with the National Unification Party and Yoo Jae-won's support. There had been no official declaration of support. However, by expressing favorable views toward the National Unification Party and using ID Group's media and influence to promote the necessity of school reform, the administration had avoided being overwhelmed by the conservative media offensive.
"At the same time, legislation related to artificial intelligence, autonomous driving, and big data is also expected to be passed."
Yoo Jae-won nodded with satisfaction at Choi Kang-wook's words. After all, for him, legislation concerning artificial intelligence was even more important than the Private School Act.
