Chapter 33

I’m translating the chapter with the HTML formatting rules you specified, and I’m keeping all in-universe text in styled blocks where the source switches into news/report-style content.CHAPTER_TITLE: Chapter 33: The Price of the Right to Interfere

After Vice Chairman Lee Jaeyoung left behind his firm order to “make a contract with Another Technology by any means necessary,” the executives remaining in the conference room kept their silence.

Among them, the one with the most complicated expression was Chief Executive Director Choi of the Wireless Business Division.

He was looking at the Apple phone on the table, and at the public transit application, Another Way, contained inside it.

The technology is good. I admit it.

It was galling, but creating three applications in just three days was undeniably impressive.

It was the sort of thing that would still take months even if he stripped the Wireless Division’s development team bare and threw them at it immediately.

But Choi was an executive of a conglomerate who had seen everything. In the back of his mind, an instinctive sense was already flashing warning lights.

A public transit app... this could become a problem.

As far as Choi knew, neither the government nor any local authority had ever formally opened APIs for public transportation.

Then this had to ‍‍‌‌⁠​​⁠‌​​‍​​‍​‌​⁠‍‌‍⁠⁠‌⁠‌‍‌‍‌‌‌‍⁠​‌​‌​‌‍‌‌‌⁠‍​​‌‍⁠‌‌⁠⁠be a scraping method, pulling data from government websites or public records.

Using public data ‍‍‌‌⁠​​⁠‌​​‍​​‍​‌​⁠‍‌‍⁠⁠‌⁠‌‍‌‍‌‌‌‍⁠​‌​‌​‌‍‌‌‌⁠‍​​‌‍⁠‌‌⁠⁠without permission... if they want to get nasty about it under public data law, they’ll have plenty to get nasty about.

There was no way conservative civil servants would sit still and let an app like that run around using their data without permission.

This will definitely blow up. Local governments, the Ministry of Land, Infrastructure and Transport, somebody will find something to pick at.

A sly smile crossed Choi’s lips, erasing the defeat that had clung there a moment before.

Because of the vice chairman’s order, he couldn’t block the contract for now.

But after the contract was another matter entirely.

For now, let it ‍‍‌‌⁠​​⁠‌​​‍​​‍​‌​⁠‍‌‍⁠⁠‌⁠‌‍‌‍‌‌‌‍⁠​‌​‌​‌‍‌‌‌⁠‍​​‌‍⁠‌‌⁠⁠stand. Let Kim Hyuncheol enjoy thinking he’s earned a big win.

Then, the moment a legal risk surfaced, all the blame would fall squarely on the Future Innovation Office and Kim Hyuncheol, who had driven the deal.

All he had to do was step forward then and strike. He could accuse them of bringing in illegal technology without proper verification and staining the company’s image, and that would be that.

They’ll be drinking poison and not even know it.

And then...

Not only the Future Innovation Office, but the vice chairman who chose Kim Hyuncheol over me will be under pressure too. When Chairman Lee returns to management later, I can keep him standing there like a scarecrow. And I’ll fill the vacuum myself.

More than the damage the company might suffer, Choi cared about his own pride and career.

He composed an expression of artificial concern and said to Kim Hyuncheol, “Director Kim. Since the vice chairman himself has given the instruction, the Wireless Business Division will cooperate as much as possible as well.”

“...Thank you for your cooperation.”

Kim Hyuncheol found Choi’s sudden enthusiasm strangely suspicious.

And he himself also had the feeling that something was slipping past him.

But the “one-week contract deadline” Another Technology had set was rushing toward him too quickly for him to stop and think about what he might be missing.

If they failed to meet that deadline, Another Technology had said it would not enter into any contract with Seongsam Electronics ever again.

Time was not on Seongsam Electronics’ side.

Looks like the testing’s about finished.

I was sitting in front of my computer, looking at the monitor.

On it was a report stating that the applications I had sent to Seongsam Electronics on the Apple phone were running normally.

After a moment’s thought, I asked Zero, “Zero, the public transit application could still have legal issues, right?”

“Yes.”

“Would Seongsam Electronics notice that quickly too?”

At my question, Zero answered, “Seongsam Electronics is the Republic of Korea’s top elite organization. The probability of them noticing is high. However...”

“However?”

“The fear that Master’s applications may be taken by Apple at any moment, and the tight deadline of ‘one week’ you presented, may cloud their rational judgment.”

Zero continued.

“The Future Innovation Office has to secure a contract with Master, so they won’t have time to worry about it, but the Wireless Business Division, which doesn’t need to worry about the contract itself, may notice the problem relatively early.”

I see.

I nodded.

I already knew it too. ‍‍‌‌⁠​​⁠‌​​‍​​‍​‌​⁠‍‌‍⁠⁠‌⁠‌‍‌‍‌‌‌‍⁠​‌​‌​‌‍‌‌‌⁠‍​​‌‍⁠‌‌⁠⁠The public transit app could become a problem.

As of 2009 in South Korea, the legal concept of public data was still vague.

Scraping data without local government permission lived in a gray area between legal and illegal.

So for an ordinary startup or an individual, it was highly likely that local governments would push back.

Especially if it was a “foreign company” like Another Technology.

They’ll say public data belongs to the citizens, that no profit can be made from it, and then, in the end, if you want to do business in Korea, they’ll pressure you to pay up.

And not just once. They’d probably demand annual usage fees too.

That’s why I need Seongsam Electronics’ power.

Seongsam Electronics was a company whose influence reached deep into Korean administration and law.

Put politely, they were exceptionally good at government relations. Put less politely, they had spent years doing tacit lobbying.

Their influence in South Korea was absolute.

So if I used Seongsam Electronics’ power, I could tear up most regulations, or at least pressure them to change in my favor.

This public transit app is just the beginning.

From here on out, I was going to build a wide range of platforms that served users all over the world. South Korea included, of course.

And every time I did, telecom companies, local governments, or national authorities would come at me with pressure.

They’d say I was violating their interests and demand network usage fees, or they might even propose ridiculous bills aimed at putting the brakes on my platform.

Chances are, the telecoms will start pressuring me as soon as VoiceTalk gets added to FreeChat, meaning the feature that lets people call over data.

When that happened, I planned to use Seongsam Electronics’ power so no one could lay a hand on me.

Zero, reading my thoughts, said, “So that is the real condition you want from your contract with Seongsam Electronics, Master.”

“Exactly. It’s something money can’t buy. Something only Seongsam Electronics can provide.”

I rested my chin in my hand and thought.

Unlike other countries, lobbying is illegal in Korea.

In other countries, I could have Vincent spread legal lobbying funds around and turn senators or representatives to my side.

In other words, money could smooth over all kinds of things.

But in Korea, the process was far more complicated and covert.

It was a league of their own, tangled up in school ties, hometown ties, and blood ties.

They didn’t just accept money from anyone.

In that sense, if Seongsam Electronics, with all the political and business connections it has built up over the years, becomes my shield and takes the bullets for me, that’ll be a lot easier on me in many ways.

Of course, I didn’t want Seongsam to be only a shield.

I wanted it to be a spear too.

I want to use the data centers Seongsam Electronics has around the world.

The Amazon cloud servers I was using now would definitely hit their limit eventually.

Speeds would vary depending on the region too, which could cause problems with service quality.

Especially across Asia, the difference will be huge.

In that sense, if I wanted to process data from people all over the world in real time, the infrastructure Seongsam Electronics had already laid down was a perfect fit.

On top of that, I’ll eventually need to put my apps on Seongsam Electronics’ smartphones too.

It would be nice if everything went exactly the way I wanted, but...

Suddenly curious, I asked Zero, “If I tell Seongsam Electronics I want that kind of help instead of money, what do you think they’ll make of it? Will they think it’s a good deal, or will they try to keep me in check?”

“At first, they will undoubtedly consider it a benefit.”

Zero’s answer was decisive.

“Just as Apple did, Seongsam Electronics would be able to avoid massive immediate cash outflows and trade with influence they already possess. The probability is very high that they would judge it a cost-effective deal. However...”

“However?”

“As Master’s platform grows, they will realize they failed to see the long term and come to think of it as a contract that costs them dearly.”

“Then that’ll be a problem?”

“It will not. By then, Master will have become strong enough that even Seongsam Electronics will have difficulty restraining you, and they will think it is better to keep you as a friend than an enemy.”

I stood up.

Then all I have to do now is wait for them to contact me.

There was only one thing I was curious about.

That was how high Seongsam Electronics’ first offer would be.

Apple had initially offered thirty million dollars for one piece of my technology, but how would Seongsam value three applications?

They’ll be torn over it. They might even decide to acquire Another Technology itself.

That kind of headache was Seongsam Electronics’ problem.

I had my own work to do.

Click.

When I clicked, the monitor changed and the FreeChat administrator page appeared.

Now’s the time to go after the Japanese market in earnest.

At present, FreeChat was dominating the United States and Europe by an overwhelming margin.

According to Zero’s analysis, among smartphone users, text messages had practically disappeared altogether.

Among students, there were even cliques called things like “FreeChat Crew” or “FreeChat Friends,” groups made up only of students who used FreeChat.

But in Japan, the market share was growing more slowly than anywhere else.

Japan itself still wasn’t fully an Apple phone market, and Japanese users were too accustomed to the existing text-message and email culture known as “deco mail.”

Japan’s texting culture is different from other countries. Sending plain text alone feels stiff to them.

Japanese message users liked to decorate their texts with colorful fonts, cute drawings, and lots of emoticons.

So I had prepared something for that.

I scanned over the hundreds of image files uploaded in the admin window.

That’s right. Emoticons.

Drk, drk.

I rolled the mouse wheel and looked through them, thinking, The quality’s good.

The screen was packed with a wide range of characters. Cute animal mascots with round, perfectly proportioned bodies.

Zero had made these.

“I analyzed human visual preference data and produced them using the golden ratio most likely to inspire favorable reactions.”

They were textbook designs, the kind that looked like they would sell without question.

Once someone started using them, others would want to use them too. That sort of feeling.

In contrast, there were some emoticons that looked a little... undercooked.

Did the new hires on the design side make these this time?

The design team rookies’ emoticons were different from Zero’s.

Their character lines were crooked, the expressions were bizarre or strangely infuriating... there were rabbit and bear emoticons with smug little faces on them.

The captions inside them had the same kind of tone too: “It’s because there isn’t enough meat...” or “Why does Monday even come!!! Damn it!!!” or “Hmph, I am pretty, aren’t I.”

It was what people called B-grade humor.

If we only had perfect emoticons, things would get boring, so I told them to make stuff like this too. They did well.

“Correct. Humans sometimes respond to emotion rather than logic. If something is too perfect, it doesn’t feel affectionate.”

The perfect work of Zero and the bizarre, distinctly human sensibility of my staff’s work.

When those two combined, the synergy would be enormous.

One free emoticon set by default... and ten premium emoticon sets for sale.

For now, I planned to roll out the emoticon update only to Japanese FreeChat users.

I set the price of the emoticons at 99 yen.

That came out to roughly one dollar.

After Apple took its 10 percent cut, I’d get 90 cents per sale.

Zero said that price was exactly the sweet spot for impulse buying.

After a moment’s thought, I said to Zero, “Push the update to the Japanese server.”

“Understood. FreeChat emoticon update deployment to the Japanese region will begin now.”

At the same time, in a cafe in Shibuya, Tokyo.

“Okay, taking it! Say cheese!”

Click!

High school girl Minami pressed her face close to her friends and took a selfie.

In her hand was an Apple phone.

The friends checking the photo gasped and made a fuss.

“Ooh...! It came out so well!”

“Her skin looks completely bright and smooth.”

“It really does make you pretty when you shoot with the Clear Cam app.”

“Send it to me! Over infrared—ah, right. Apple phones can’t do that, can they?”

Her friend said that with a disappointed shake of the pink flip phone she was holding.

A Galapagos-style mobile phone, also known as a garake.

Minami gave a wry smile.

“Yeah. I’ll send it by email.”

The Apple phone was clearly good.

The screen was bigger, the touch response was smooth, it looked nice, and above all, there were apps like Clear Cam that could take absurdly flattering photos.

But most of Minami’s friends still used garake phones.

The reason was simple. They couldn’t do the single most important thing in mobile communication: decorate the text.

“Apple phones are good and all, but the messages are so cold.”

“Exactly. Because you can’t use deco mail.”

“Whenever I get a text from an Apple phone, it sounds like someone who’s angry.”

“Right? Right.”

For Japanese high school girls, sending a message without pictures or moving emoticons was as humiliating as walking through the middle of Shibuya without makeup on.

So even while using an Apple phone, Minami still had to rely on awkward combinations of special characters to barely express her feelings when talking to friends.

I wish Apple phones could do deco mail too.

That was when she sighed and looked down at the screen.

FreeChat?

Minami tilted her head.

FreeChat was installed, but it was an app she barely used.

Mostly, she and her Apple-phone friends had only tried it a few times, saying things like, “FreeChat texts are free! Amazing!”

What are emoticons?

With low expectations, Minami tapped the notification.

The app updated, and the chat room screen opened.

And there, next to the keyboard, was an unfamiliar “smile button.”

The moment she tapped it without thinking.

“...Huh?”

Minami’s eyes went wide.

Dozens of pictures unfurled beneath the screen in a cascade.

These were not crude dot drawings like garake deco mail.

The lines were clean, the colors vivid, and above all...

“...Kawaii.”

Minami murmured the word without meaning to. Her friends, who were drinking coffee beside her, jumped and looked over.

“What’s wrong, Minami?”

“L-look at this. Isn’t it adorable? FreeChat has this now!”

On the screen, a round bear and rabbit were laughing so hard they were clutching their stomachs, or doing a butt dance.

That was when it happened.

A FreeChat message arrived from her friend Yui, who used an Apple phone.

Along with the text, a large bear appeared on the screen, streaming tears down its face.

The animation was so realistic and so cute.

“What is this! It’s huge!”

“It moves? That’s insane!”

The friends using garake phones also showed interest and crowded around Minami’s phone.

“This is way more convenient than deco mail. You just tap it and it goes right away.”

“The image quality is totally different. Look at this rabbit’s face, hahaha!”

“The ‘I hate exams!’ bear is too cute!”

“I want this one! The rabbit saying, ‘I know I’m cute.’”

The high school girls were interested in Zero’s emoticons too, but they were also strongly drawn to the staff-designed, gloriously trashy ones.

Possessed, Minami tapped the rabbit and sent a reply.

Minami: [A rabbit with a runny nose giving a thumbs-up]

Kya-ha-ha-ha-ha!

The cafe filled with the laughter of high school girls.

They were at that age where they laughed at nothing, at anything cute.

“I want to use this too!”

“If it’s free for three days, does that mean you have to buy it after that? How much is it?”

“Ninety-nine yen! It looks like it’s on sale for seventy-seven yen right now!”

“That’s not bad.”

“Seriously! My garake contract is almost up too. Maybe I should switch to an Apple phone?”

“Minami, send that to me too! I want to use it when I screenshot things and send them by email!”

It wasn’t just a simple messenger anymore. It was becoming play, and culture.

The door to the ironclad kingdom of Japan, the nation of deco mail...

was wide open, pried apart by bears and rabbits flown in from Korea.

It was a cultural invasion.

Two days after emoticons were updated on Japanese FreeChat, a report on “emoticons” also reached Kim Hyuncheol, head of Seongsam Electronics’ Future Innovation Office.

That report was so unbelievable he could hardly trust his own eyes.

“Something that looks like children’s play... got more than 160,000 paid downloads in one day?”

He called it “children’s play,” but the drawings themselves were cute and charming.

It was simply far removed from what Kim Hyuncheol considered a “product.”

Seongsam Electronics’ estimate of Apple phone sales in Japan was around 350,000 units.

Considering Japan’s population, that still meant only a small minority were using Apple phones.

And yet, if 110,000 of those 350,000 Apple phones had downloaded the emoticons for a fee...

It was an absurd number.

Of course, some people would have bought multiple sets. But even so, at that purchase volume, wasn’t it effectively saying that nearly everyone using an Apple phone had considered buying?

...Unbelievable that something like this sells.

Kim Hyuncheol felt dumbfounded, but at the same time, even more burdened.

There was more in the report too.

...

Apple phone search volume and community mentions in Japan increased by 186%...

Visits to mobile phone stores and dealerships increased by 37%...

As soon as FreeChat’s emoticons were released, customers were moving.

Japanese customers, who were just as conservative as Koreans when it came to “switching” anything, were moving.

Is Another Tech doing what Apple couldn’t?

What’s more, if it worked in Japan, it would work in Korea too.

He didn’t want to admit it, but it was a truth he couldn’t deny.

After all, Another Technology’s ability was not just about raw engineering.

They know what customers want, and they know how to make it. That planning power is the real face of Another Technology.

There was no doubt Apple had received a report on the emoticons too.

Steve Jobson’s probably thrilled. He said he was humiliated that Apple phones weren’t doing well in the Japanese market.

That wasn’t the important thing right now.

The important thing was how much he would have to offer to acquire Another Technology.

At this rate, I may need to raise the acquisition price.

Kim Hyuncheol was already thinking about acquiring Another Technology outright.

From the information he had, Apple had reportedly tried to buy one piece of Another Technology’s technology for thirty million dollars, but had been refused.

So I was thinking of about five times that amount if we acquired the company as a whole... but if they’re even making revenue from something like emoticons, how much would we have to offer for them to sell?

“Huu...”

Kim Hyuncheol’s head was getting far too complicated.