Mei Yiqiu stood facing the wall with her pipe in her mouth, looking at the map on the big screen on the wall through the white smoke she spitted out. The map is densely dotted with red dots, and the more developed the area, the denser these red dots become, and some areas are connected into a sea of red.

He stretched out his hand and casually clicked on a red dot in the eastern United States, and a small window immediately popped up next to it:

City: Miami

Population: 5.59 million

Sales: 119,500 units

Number of users: 231325

He randomly clicked on a red dot on China's eastern coast:

City: Yongcheng

Population: 8.2 million

Sales: 173,220 units

Number of users: 437709

Later, Mei Yiqiu opened a few more points in Europe, Japan, and other red-dense places. The data shows that although the number of users in various places is different, there is not much difference overall, the average sales of space boxes are about one-fortieth of the population, and the number of registered users of the dream guide is between two and three times the sales of space boxes, indicating that there are probably two or three people sharing each space box, which is also expected by him.

In this matter, there are big differences between several operators of the game and the agents in various regions of the space box, and there was a big quarrel about it in the video conference that just ended. Penguin Group believes that the most important thing in a game is the number of basic users, so it can encourage people to share the space box, and if the cost of the space box is too high, it can even give away hardware for free. They believe that as long as the number of users goes up and users become sufficiently dependent, it will be logical to charge for games and value-added services in the future. The agent led by Huanyu International believes that the core of the whole project is the space box, and the dream guide game should be free forever, and making money through hardware is the king.

Another point of contention is whether or not to connect to the Internet. 5G technology has been mature and commercial, the external mobile Internet can fully bear the data volume of the dream guide and the requirements of the space box, the cost of self-built base stations is too large, all countries are now in a wait-and-see state, whether to vigorously build 5G base stations or another to build dreamnet private network is a problem, everyone is grinding, and the steps dare not take too big.

Because the 5G base station can not be upgraded on the basis of 4G, so the world's major communication companies have had an independent networking plan in the first two years, but the emergence of the space box has delayed the implementation of this plan, it and dreamnet are actually overlapping, could have been universal, but the third space foundation and Mei's laboratory both insist on independent networking, no one wants to spend a lot of money to build a 5G network at the last point.

Now there is a general call for opening up the dream guide data and merging DreamNet with the Internet to save social resources as much as possible. However, many mobile phone and hardware manufacturers do not support this, because it means that in addition to the space box, all communication and VR equipment, including mobile phones, will be eliminated in a short time.

And this is also what the agents of the space box are happy to see, there will be a real unified overlord in the world, and the future world will be the world of the space box and the world of the dream guide.

Of course, there have been many local companies that have launched antitrust lawsuits in the local area, suing the Third Space Foundation and its technology companies and related laboratories for violating the monopoly law, and even the United Nations General Assembly has proposed a bill that the technology related to the fate of mankind must be disclosed to all mankind, so as to require the Third Space Foundation and Mei's Lab to disclose the core technology of the space box. However, if this bill is passed, it means that all nuclear and aerospace technologies in developed countries will have to be disclosed to the world, so it is obviously impossible to pass it.

However, opposition is sweeping the world, with growing calls for technology disclosure, network consolidation, and hardware price reductions. Everyone is a little unable to withstand the pressure, and they don't quite understand why Mei Yiqiu must insist on independent networking and rapid expansion, these are two contradictory things, such a big project, no one wants to eat a big fat man.

Throughout the video conference, Mei Yiqiu didn't say a word, just quietly watched, listened, and smoked. It wasn't until the end, when the people stopped talking, that he said slowly, "Let's talk about it." ”

The usually commanding and invincible capitalists have nothing to do with this spirited white-haired old man, this is probably the least efficient business meeting they have ever held in their lives, but for the most difficult project in their lives, they have to admit it. In the face of capital, capitalists are always models of bending and stretching.

For Mei Yiqiu, however, none of this matters. What matters is how to achieve what he wants to achieve in the shortest possible time – at least one billion users, preferably two billion, or even five billion, which of course he may not be able to achieve in his lifetime.

The reputation of the dream guide can be said to be explosive, there is almost no bad review, those malicious reviews on the Internet can be seen at a glance, because they have never used the space box at all, and all real users, even if they have been bought by the opponent, as long as they use it once, they will really be hooked on this game, and they want to buy a space box if they are bankrupt. As a result, there were reports on the Internet about selling kidneys and buying space boxes.

Mei Yiqiu randomly clicked on the red dots in several red-dense areas on the map, and as a game with expensive hardware, the user coverage rate of close to 10% is quite astonishing. But this is still far from what Mei Yiyi wanted. Even if it were 10% in all regions of the world, it would only be 700 million users.

Of course, it's easy to falsify data. Penguin's operations department had suggested to him that he could easily increase the number of users by five times the current number, but this plan was rejected by Mei Yiqiu. He doesn't need some duplicate inactive accounts to attract the eyes of capital, he needs real users, each user is independent, a unique person who can be verified by DNA and individual consciousness.

However, in addition to the developed areas, there are large gray areas on the map, where there are some red dots scattered and some places without red dots.

His outstretched finger slid across the map and clicked on a red dot in western China:

City: Doucheng

Population: 3.69 million

Sales: 1,532 units

Number of users: 3,421

The city's user base is less than one-thousandth of its population, and it's not one of the poorest in China. Mei Yiqiu slid her hand to the west coast of Africa, and found a lone red dot in the vast gray area. He clicked on it and saw that the data was:

City: Monrovia

Population: 1.15 million

Sales: 1 unit

Number of users: 1

No matter how poor the area is, there are rich people, but in the capital of this African country, only one person has bought a space box. Mei Yiqiu didn't know who that person was, but he knew the root cause of the problem that couldn't be promoted in these places - there were no base stations there, and the operation and maintenance companies would not build base stations for a few users.

The only user in Monrovia must have rented a special satellite data channel provided by Third Space, which would have cost the excess.

"Professor, is there really no way to connect with the existing network and equipment?" Mei Ziqing behind him asked cautiously.

Mei Yiqiu shook her head: "No data encryption method can stop a ghost from wandering in the online world!" ”

"But I don't understand, why do we have to stop it? As long as it can't rewrite our data, its existence won't affect our ability to distinguish parasitic consciousness! Mei Ziqing said.

"How do you know that a consciousness living in an electronic network is not a parasite?"