Nexus Business Unit.
"Slurp"
Sam slurped the stringy cheese off the pizza into his mouth, glancing at the screen and muttering:
"Maintenance costs are getting higher and higher."
He was referring to the Internet.
As the Nexus ecosystem becomes more complete, and with its completely free email strategy...
Today, Nexus has become the top choice for home users when purchasing internet services.
No additional equipment is needed; just a specially designed modem connection is all that's required to give your old home telephone line a second life.
However, the emergence of nmail directly cut off this path.
Unless there are specific requirements for the email system's features, or it's a project subsidized by local state policies, most people still prefer to choose Nexus.
Undoubtedly, this free strategy has hit a nerve with a large number of users. Being able to enjoy convenient and easy-to-use email services for free without spending a penny has helped countless people.
Before this, if you wanted to interact with other people, you either had to do it by phone or by letter.
e-mail?
It was invented a long time ago, but it has always remained a product of the commercial sector.
To be frank, Gamenova didn't offer anything groundbreaking in terms of email.
Whether it's the SMTP protocol or the underlying implementation, it's essentially the same mature technology.
But Gamenova did something that no one else dared to do.
Make it affordable for everyone.
Gamenova is amazing!
But now the backlash has begun.
With such a terrifying rate of expansion, Nexus is a bottomless pit, a never-ending money-devouring behemoth.
Although its expenses are not as high as those of wafer fabs, which can easily amount to hundreds of millions of dollars, its terrifying aspect lies in its continuous and inexhaustible flow of resources.
Every day, every minute, every second, is burning through Gamenova's cash reserves at an alarming rate.
Only a cash cow like Gamenova can afford to rely on free services to seize the market.
"Two servers in San Francisco are undergoing maintenance and hardware upgrades today."
He was making plans.
Upgrading the server room's hardware is also a major issue.
As per Lin Lixin's request, further investment in the wafer fab must be increased to expedite the bit-range update.
You have to spend money everywhere.
Oh, how sorrowful!
Especially considering the recent trend brought about by " Papa's Pizzeria ".
This isn't some nerd-only game like Screeps.
Any player, even a child, can learn how to play within seconds of getting started. Lin Lixin and his team designed it this way intentionally.
Despite the local cache, most players can enjoy a smooth local gaming experience after the initial load.
But there are just too many new players!
Countless players flood in every day.
This has caused a massive increase in network pressure.
"Ring ring ring"
The telephone on the table rang.
Before Sam could act, department head Connor picked up the receiver.
"Hello?... Yes, of course. Mr. Sam is right next to me. Please wait a moment."
He gently covered the Mike with his hand and looked at Sam beside him.
"It's Mr. Lin."
"Leave it to me." Sam nodded, reaching out to take the receiver.
"It's me... really? Shit! Okay, I got it."
Ten minutes later.
The Corvette pulled into the parking lot.
Lin Lixin, who had been away from San Francisco for a long time, finally returned.
Instead of returning to headquarters, their first stop was Nexus.
There is no other reason.
Lin Lixin has finally decided to address the issue of the internet economy.
"Damn attention economy model!"
He shouted in his heart and pushed open the door to the already prepared conference room.
His first words silenced the entire room instantly:
"Ladies and gentlemen, from today onwards, Nexus will become Gamenova's most profitable division."
The development of the internet economy occurred within a short period of just a few years after 1994.
Before this, the early Internet was a high-end device used by researchers and government departments.
Let alone commercial activities, it hasn't even achieved widespread adoption by the general public.
It wasn't until 1994 that Wired magazine came up with a brilliant idea.
It can also be said to be the root of all evil.
Embedding... GG on the website.
So HotWired, the web version of Wired magazine, launched the world's first banner ads in October 1994.
It proved to be a success.
And it wasn't just an ordinary success.
It ushered in a new era of the information age and successfully commercialized the Internet.
From an emotional perspective, this appalling act destroyed the once pristine internet and completely annihilated this free information space. But rationally speaking, without the emergence of commercialization, the information age would never have experienced such a terrifying rate of development.
Creators aren't getting paid, businesses aren't getting paid, and people are working entirely out of passion—how many can still maintain their enthusiasm?
From the perspective of the history of internet development and economics, the GG economy is a key driver of the Volkswagen of the internet.
After all, servers cost money, bandwidth costs money, and developers and operators also need money.
Everything on the internet costs money.
A subscription model?
Perhaps, and indeed many companies have tried it.
Many news media outlets have begun to experiment with subscription models after the advent of the internet, mimicking offline subscription services.
But none of them yielded significant results.
The biggest advantage of the internet, which attracts so many users, is the abundance of free content.
The emergence of GG brought these seemingly impossible opposites together.
Users can still use it for free, while creators can earn income to cover their expenses and even make a profit. Driven by profit, the prosperity of the Internet became inevitable.
[the economy of attention]
"Attention economy."
Lin Lixin threw out an unfamiliar term.
You can think of it as an economic model that treats users' attention as an asset.
The concept was born on the eve of the Internet explosion in 1994 and is inextricably linked to HotWired.
"I believe everyone can see the rapid development of the internet."
He said.
Those present were all core members of Nexus, who interact with the entire internet world almost every day.
The emergence of the World Wide Web heralded the arrival of the Internet in every household.
And every move Gamenova makes adds fuel to the fire on this foundation.
Today, the internet has become a massive truck that even Gamenova couldn't control, and it's charging headlong into the new era.
In just a few years, internet penetration has quadrupled.
The penetration rate has surged from just over 1% to a terrifying level of over 5%.
On average, one in every 20 households now has internet service.
Whether it's the early dial-up modem or the current generation of ADSL.
If you're not good with numbers, you might think this adoption rate is quite low.
But in reality, this is already a very alarming result.
According to the original timeline, the internet penetration rate in the United States was only around 10% until around 1996.
Gamenova's sudden surge in popularity has given the development of the Internet a powerful boost.
What do you think is the most valuable thing on the internet?
Lin Lixin asked, quietly awaiting everyone's answer.
"It's... information, right? Users want higher quality information, and it's because of information that they're willing to explore the internet world," Connor replied.
"No, quite the opposite, information is the least valuable thing on the internet."
Lin Lixin shook his head.
"Moreover, as its popularity increases, information will become increasingly abundant, even to the point of being overwhelming. Information in the internet world will not be a scarce resource, but rather an excess of 'garbage.'"
As more and more people go online, those who are eager to express themselves but have nowhere to vent will inevitably seize this opportunity to express everything in their hearts.
Even if there's only one such person out of a hundred, the sheer volume of information is still terrifying given the sheer number of people involved.
Moreover, in the new social arena of the internet where everyone wears a mask, a large proportion of people are willing to liberate their true nature and reveal their closed inner world.
"With the development of information technology, what will be valuable will no longer be information itself, but rather... attention."
When content becomes overwhelming, when it's so abundant it's dazzling, and new ideas emerge every day...
Users will no longer feel a lack of information; on the contrary, their limited attention span will not be able to attend to all the information.
Whoever can capture users' attention will be the one to reap the rewards in the internet bubble.
This is a grand battle for visual appeal, but also a very dangerous double-edged sword.
It can indeed solve all the funding problems we face now, and even in the future, in one fell swoop.
But it can also subtly destroy users.
All users!
With social media and fast-paced information dominating the online world, it's inevitable that humanity will move away from long-form reading, experience a decline in critical thinking skills, and a loss of patience.
This could be considered a... negative form of evolution.
These qualities will be rapidly eliminated in the internet age.
It may not have a significant impact in the short term, but with the birth of the next generation, and even the generation after that.
For Generation Z who have grown up in the new environment, this regression will inevitably become more severe and more obvious.
At that time, the video game industry will inevitably be one of the first sectors to be affected.
So, should we do it or not?
Of course we should do it! If we stifle the development of the internet because of something like this, it would be throwing the baby out with the bathwater.
It is undeniable that the development of the attention economy model has indeed had many negative impacts.
But it was precisely its emergence that created the information age that flourished in later generations.
"We need to embed GG into the webpage."
"You mean like those guys at sports games? Making money off of GG merchants?"
That's definitely a good direction.
Television programming has always been a major source of revenue for television stations.
The most classic example is the Super Bowl, where a mere 30 seconds can fetch millions of dollars.
"No, what we want to do is... a platform."