The Prometheus Project
“Ah.” It was a sigh, not an exclamation of wonder. The default page that greeted him on YouTube was cluttered with far too much text. There were precious few video clips worth watching, rendering the phrase “video-sharing site” almost ironic. Strange. Before his regression, it would have been perfectly normal for YouTube to look this modest in its early days. Back then, the best tools most people had for shooting digital video were feature phones or digital camcorders. Now, however, smartphones had made filming video something anyone could do. Owning a smartphone was like carrying a digital camera and camcorder in one hand.
Yet even in 2005, no major video-sharing platform had emerged, and YouTube—appearing several months later than it originally had—still wore its old, outdated appearance. “Well, when I think of video, adult content is still the first thing that comes to mind.”
Entertaining videos did not require massive capital. A single person could create something fun and witty, or simply stream themselves playing games and draw an audience. But no matter how hard Yoo Jae-won searched YouTube now, he could not find high-quality clips worth bookmarking. Instead, it was all too easy to stumble across footage drenched in flesh tones and pink hues—most of it looking less like consensual recordings and more like illegal hidden-camera shots. If the moderators failed to keep things under control, the site would turn into a pornographic hub in an instant.
In truth, ever since launching his cloud service, the biggest headache had not been hackers but people uploading illegal files. Countless users were busy sharing cracked Android operating systems and expensive paid applications. After all, even massive DVD-sized programs could be shared with a single short URL through the cloud. Anyone looking to profit from piracy would naturally be tempted. Hackers targeting corporate data stored on the cloud were also numerous; stealing valuable information meant instant wealth. And the third threat to the cloud service was illegal video—both professionally produced adult content and, more problematically, footage ordinary people shot on their smartphones. Revenge porn, in particular, was spreading rapidly alongside smartphone upgrades. What had once been mitigated by poor image quality was now devastating in FHD resolution.
In the nineties, everything had been caught by human hands. Now, Gold’s image-analysis module had automated much of the process. Even so, the number of human monitors had only increased, because the number of cloud-service users had exploded. With Android smartphones—and every Android-compatible device—shipping with the cloud service pre-installed, the size of the Android user base was essentially the size of the cloud user base.
“Hmm~” A soft sigh escaped Yoo Jae-won’s lips. He was deliberating. Specifically, he was weighing what to do about YouTube. Knowing its future stature, his first instinct was to acquire it immediately. What held him back was the knowledge that the platform would run at a loss until the mid-2010s. The more users it attracted, the steeper the server costs climbed—especially since YouTube had committed from the start to unlimited upload capacity.
“Watching and waiting is probably best.” YouTube was not his only option. Timeflex was already growing steadily, and several Korean video-focused SNS companies were already competing fiercely. He knew that YouTube’s explosive growth in the original timeline had begun only after it became a default app on Android smartphones. The wisest move, he decided, would be to step in as a white knight once another video platform hit its ceiling.
“The same will probably hold true for photo-centric SNS.” Facebook had come first, then YouTube; Instagram could not be far behind. These were apps he had used for far longer after his regression than the fifteen years he had spent racing toward today. Fragments from the pages of memory stirred with a strange mix of nostalgia and alienation at seeing them in such primitive form.
Yoo Jae-won was about to close the browser tab when he paused. “Since I’ve already logged in, I might as well make an account.” He clicked the sign-up button and created a personal account. The interface looked identical to the old version, yet one thing had changed: thanks to an API linked to Email.com, entering a public email address completed registration instantly.
“If I’m going to sign up, I should upload a video too.” He reached for his Android smartphone—sleek, weighty, and matte black. It was a model unavailable on the open market: the Android S5, scheduled for unveiling at IDDC 2005 in just four days. Major updates arrived every two years, and this was the next one. From the AP to the camera module, the upgrades were substantial enough to fill two or three hours of discussion. Particular care had gone into the camera; it could now record 60 frames per second in FHD while keeping image stabilization active. Camera technology brought side effects like revenge porn, but the benefits far outweighed them, so investment would continue.
When he switched to video mode and looked at the screen, he shook his head. The improved resolution made every flaw painfully obvious. He immediately sent Kim Dae-seok a message on ID Talk requesting lighting and a stylist. Even a simple greeting video was being treated with full professionalism. As a result, it took a full four hours after creating the account before the first video went live.
The clip showed Yoo Jae-won, impeccably groomed and standing in a study lined with electronic devices instead of books, offering a friendly greeting. The title was equally warm: “Hello, everyone!” Though only a minute long, professional makeup, proper attire, and expert lighting gave it a polish unlike anything else on the platform. At a glance, it could have been shot with a broadcast HD ENG camera—yet the device had been an Android S5.
Uploading the greeting was already considerable effort, but Yoo Jae-won went further. He linked the video on both TokTok and his sparingly used PowerBlog.com account. Sharing features were still rudimentary, so he had to create thumbnails and insert hyperlinks manually, but the task was simple for someone as accustomed to smartphones as he was.
The effect was immediate. His SNS accounts commanded millions of followers. The moment he posted, notifications went out. Even if only one in ten followers clicked the link, the greeting video would appear on YouTube. The view count, which had lingered at zero for a while after upload, began to climb rapidly.
Less than an hour after he posted the links on TokTok and PowerBlog.com, news articles appeared. Yoo Jae-won had known the media monitored his accounts, but he had not expected even a casual greeting wishing YouTube future success to draw such attention. By the mid-twenty-first century, even small internet outlets would compete fiercely enough to publish absurd stories, but that time had not yet arrived.
Netizens proved equally sharp. Observant viewers quickly spotted hidden details in the short greeting video. The study filled with electronics instead of books sparked all manner of speculation and exaggeration online. Some posts were playful; others were piercingly accurate. One in particular made him tense: a comment claiming the video had obviously been shot on the upcoming S5. The writer, self-proclaimed camera expert, cited the distinctive color science of Android smartphones as proof. “Vivid color and unprecedented image quality? That has to be the next Android flagship.” The logic was sound, and the fact that someone had deduced it so precisely from the color alone was startling.
Unfortunately, YouTube appeared to be running on its own servers. The sudden flood of visitors from SNS and news articles caused the site to slow, then buffer heavily, until service finally went down. In exchange, YouTube experienced its largest surge in sign-ups and views since launch. Grateful, the platform created an official TokTok account to welcome Yoo Jae-won and promise improved service. In turn, Yoo Jae-won instructed all ID Group subsidiaries to open official YouTube channels and promote the site. He was laying groundwork for the explosive growth he knew was coming, though most observers simply assumed he had developed another eccentric interest.
A few days later, IDDC 2005—the largest annual event of ID Group—opened at the Silicon Valley Convention Center. With so much to announce, the show had been scheduled for seven days and prepared on a grand scale. Offline tickets sold out early; online streaming was flawless. In previous years, bandwidth shortages had forced organizers to block new viewers or downgrade quality even for FHD broadcasts. This year, such measures were unnecessary. Cloud data centers had been expanded aggressively, and internet service providers had significantly increased backbone capacity.
The real catalyst had been Time Warner Nextcom’s aggressive investment. A year earlier, the standard internet package offered 1 Mbps. Now the baseline had jumped to 10 Mbps—ten times faster—and a new 100 Mbps premium tier had been introduced. Prices remained almost unchanged: $20 per month for 10 Mbps, $40 for 100 Mbps. When Time Warner Nextcom began its push, competitors had no choice but to invest in infrastructure to retain customers. The resulting competition lifted America’s internet-quality ranking into the global top five. Only two years earlier, it had hovered around tenth place—an impressive leap. Korea still held first place, its dense urban population allowing massive quality gains on a far smaller budget than America’s.
Thanks to this internet-speed war, IDDC 2005 could be viewed comfortably in at least HD, and often FHD. The true purpose of the upgrade, however, was to support Xbox 2. Its rival, PlayStation 3, used Blu-ray discs with 20–50 GB of capacity. Xbox 2 was limited to DVD, constraining game quality. High-resolution visuals demanded high capacity. The solution was large hard drives and online software distribution via Steam. Once installed on the hard drive, games ran without touching the optical drive. Proof that Yoo Jae-won’s strategy had worked lay in the direct correlation between rising internet speeds and Steam’s soaring sales. While Time Warner Nextcom might never fully recoup its infrastructure costs, the investment would pay dividends for years—an ultimate net gain.
With every preparation complete, IDDC 2005 opened in its usual spectacular fashion as Yoo Jae-won stepped onto the main stage. This time, however, his appearance was markedly different. What the audience most wanted to see on the first day was the very first item he would unveil. Many expected the next version of the Android operating system for PCs; Android 03 had launched exactly two years earlier, so the successor was due. Yet when Yoo Jae-won appeared, his hands were empty. He did not reach into his jacket pocket as he had in years past. Instead of his usual suit, he wore a comfortable sweater. The reason was simple: the first item he intended to present at IDDC 2005 was neither Android 05 nor the next smartphone. It was not a physical product at all. It was a golden future that existed only inside Yoo Jae-won’s mind.