American History 1988
Chapter 108 - 102 Price Increase

Chapter 108: Chapter 102 Price Increase

CompuServe, actually established in Columbus, Ohio as early as 1969, initially offered remote services and time-sharing systems to provide computing services to users in need.

Later, with the development of the internet, it gradually evolved into what we know today as dial-up internet services. As for why people are accustomed to calling it "CompuServe," this actually carries a certain sense of mockery.

In the early ’80s, in order to attract paying subscribers to its network services, CompuServe launched a series of online news partnership projects with the Associated Press.

CompuServe moved newspapers like The New York Times, The Washington Post, The San Francisco Times, and The Columbus Dispatch online by scanning them into their system.

Then, the ridiculous happened; due to slow connection speeds, it typically took users 2 to 6 hours to download the scanned pages of a newspaper.

At that time, CompuServe’s internet access cost was five US Dollars an hour, which meant that reading an online newspaper could cost a user 10 to 30 US Dollars.

But in reality, the cost of buying a physical newspaper was 20 cents—a cost that was inflated by several dozen to hundreds of times.

Thus, users who had enjoyed CompuServe’s "value service" dubbed it with the new name, CompuServe.

Over time, this nickname even replaced CompuServe’s official name, and Ohioans got used to referring to it as CompuServe.

But whether it was the butt of jokes or the target of mockery, the fact that CompuServe became the largest online network service provider in Ohio was undeniable.

Even just this year, CompuServe started to expand its services to neighboring states, like Pennsylvania, Indiana, Kentucky, and West Virginia, where its presence has begun to appear.

With increasing familiarity with network services, CompuServe also continuously adjusted its fees, and it was at this time that Price’s List came into its sights.

After a period of evaluation, CompuServe finally began to reach out to Price’s List. After more than a month of negotiations, it provided a new round of network service quotes this month.

"Including the server, CompuServe is asking Price’s List to pay them 20,000 US Dollars a month for channel usage fees," John Donovan told Dean over the phone, almost biting his tongue at the price.

"How much?!" Dean frowned, glancing at the handset in his hand, suspecting there might be an issue with the dormitory’s phone. "John, before this, Price’s List’s monthly network service costs were just over two thousand US Dollars, and now it has increased tenfold!"

"Yes, Boss," John knew all too well what this meant—it meant that Price’s List would have to pay an exorbitant server fee of 240,000 US Dollars annually.

"But we have no choice, Boss. If CompuServe doesn’t provide us with servers and network support, then Price’s List will vanish instantly, as if it had never existed.

I know this is hard to accept, but damn it, CompuServe is our only option. Without a better alternative, we don’t even have the bargaining power," John added.

Dean took a deep breath and then calmly gave his response, "Agree to their terms."

"What?" John, who was bracing for a storm, was stunned for a couple of seconds before he grasped the response.

"Agree to their terms, but let’s sign the contract for only one year," Dean instructed John dispassionately. "You’re right, John, we have no other choice without a better network service provider.

However, I have a feeling that this situation won’t last long. Within the next one or two years, things might change. Therefore, there’s no hurry to sign a long-term contract.

Of course, before we officially sign the contract, I need to make a phone call to see if anyone can provide assistance. So, hold off on CompuServe until I get back to you."

"Got it, Boss. With all the recent reforms introduced by CompuServe, I’m not sure whether it’s good or bad, but I’ll keep a close eye on them," John said, having started to study CompuServe’s various operational policies due to their recent interactions with Price’s List.

Besides the plans for outward expansion, CompuServe is said to be in collaboration with local providers in Neon, and just by looking at the tendencies, it has ambitions to become an international network operator. There are also various new features coming online, like search services and more.

Dean wondered if CompuServe also sensed that the Internet was about to enter a chaotic transition period. Before the privatization of the internet, everyone was using their divine powers to snag a piece of the pie.

After hanging up the phone, Dean paced back and forth in his dormitory, contemplating the next move. CompuServe’s reason for raising the service fees was clearly its notice of Price’s List’s explosive user growth.

In just half a year’s time, with Columbus and Cincinnati’s Price’s List gradually getting on track, Price’s List’s user base in the entire state of Ohio had reached the critical threshold of 100,000.

With such a growing number of users accessing the site, even CompuServe, slow as it may be, had to take notice. And now their demand for a price increase from Price’s List was obviously based on the site’s traffic volume.

As Price’s List’s user numbers continue to grow in the future, perhaps the price will still rise. In this era, there was no universal standard for charging for network services.

How to charge was entirely up to the operator, particularly when there were no competitors, which could lead to certain monopolistic practices.

Honestly, Dean had no good solution to this issue as it was outside of his capabilities. Yet, even so, he decided to make a call to Gary from Morgan Tailer.

"Gary, CompuServe is robbing our wallets!"

"What? What happened, Dean?" Gary, enjoying the sun and the beach at Saint Francis, was startled by Dean’s initial statement.

Today was a rare sunny day, with temperatures at noon reaching over twenty-five degrees. Gary, who had been cold for half a month, did not hesitate to book two models over the phone and brought them to a holiday beach.

Patting the blonde model’s buttocks on his lap, Gary sat up from his lounge chair. "What? 20,000 US Dollars a month?!"

"Yes, that’s our money! More than half of Price’s List’s annual profits would be harvested by CompuServe. Gary, you have to think of something!"

"I got it, Dean. But when it comes to CompuServe, Morgan Tailer’s influence is limited. I will ask my father to give them a call, but you better not have too high expectations."

As Morgan Tailer has moved its headquarters to Silicon Valley, their influence in Ohio will surely decrease.

"Think about it, Gary, $20,000 a month, that’s ten times what we made before! The extra $18,000, that’s enough for us to do so much! Mother F*cker, even if we hire call girls every day, we couldn’t spend that much in a year!"

"OK, I’ll do my best~!" Gary hung up the phone and glanced at the model who was giving him flirtatious looks over the glass of orange juice on his lap, feeling a little incensed.

Damn it, hiring two fresh models from the entertainment agency only costs two thousand dollars. The US Network is indeed too damn greedy, one-fifth of that money is Gary’s.

"Ness, help me with the straw. I’m going to teach those greedy bastards at Iron Rust a lesson on what it means to have venture capitalist connections."

The young model Ness gave Gary a sultry look, then set down the orange juice and began looking for the straw on Gary’s leg.

...

The development of Teams wasn’t complete, and the sudden move from the US Network had slightly disrupted Dean’s plan.

Fortunately, with Morgan Tailer handling negotiations, the US Network might not easily change their billing policy, but they would at least make a discount on the $20,000 base.

This is the advantage of accepting funds from venture capital firms; they might be just as greedy. But when they stand together, they also fight for their own interests.

Because of Morgan Tailer’s involvement, Dean was able to focus his attention back onto perfecting Teams.

"Marcus, have you finished making the sub-package compression for the software?"

"Don’t worry, a whole ten floppy disks." Marcus pulled the zipper on his backpack, which was filled with Sony’s 3.5-inch floppy disks.

In order to fit Teams into floppy disks with just over a megabyte of storage space, they had to distribute the storage across several disks.

In fact, a 3.5-inch hard disk could have solved the problem too, but alas, they couldn’t tamper with Stanford’s computers, so floppy disks were the best choice.

"OK, I’ve already reserved three computers in advance; today we’re going to upload Teams onto the BBS share site."

Dean wanted to conduct a stress test on Teams. They couldn’t complete this task alone, so the NSF network naturally became the best choice.

By sharing the software on BBS forums and allowing interested geeks to download it, Dean would start testing once the user base quickly reached 100 people.

As for how to control the number of downloads and prevent the outflow of Teams software, it was quite simple. Dean had another method: keys.

Only those with a key could activate the software, and the uploaded shared version of the software was a castrated version, which Dean could invalidate at any time through a version update.

Dean, Marcus, and David arrived at the library and began their separate tasks of copying the compressed files from the floppy disks into the computers.

The machine room at Stanford became the temporary server for Teams. And as soon as the post about the sharing technology was made, Dean quickly saw people downloading the software in the backend.

This was a BBS spontaneously organized by students from several universities in California, and those active there were mostly part of the geek community.

Dean’s voice instant messaging software test caught their interest, and the target group of 100 people was quickly achieved.

After shutting down the backend download function, Dean also bypassed the network administrator’s surveillance, linking Teams with Stanford’s server.

"Can we start now, Dean?" Marcus rubbed his hands impatiently.

"Of course," Dean put on his headset, and after David gave him an OK gesture, the server officially connected.

"Hello cuties, this is Marcus’s secret attic radio~" As the number of people in the software’s public audio channel rose steadily, Marcus’s excited voice started to quiver.

"Wow~ it’s miraculous, I’m actually hearing someone talking. I’m pretty sure I’m not sleepwalking~"

"Yeah~ buddy, I can assure you you’re not sleepwalking. Unless we both are having the same dream, and our dreams are overlapping. But past experience tells us, that’s f*cking impossible."

"Hey~ I’m the host here. See the name of the channel? Yeah, I’m Marcus~!" Strongly asserting his presence, Marcus couldn’t resist showing off.

"Look, there’s an ignored little poor soul. But too bad, this is the first time I’m connecting with so many people at once, so I’m starting.

Are you ready to tremble under the wonderful and charming song ’Knockin’ on Heaven’s Door’ by Guns N’ Roses? Mama, take this badge off of me..."

"Hey~ buddy your voice is too loud~"

"F*ck you, this is a crappy software."

As more and more people spoke up, a cacophony of noises came through Dean and the others’ headsets.

Click, Dean lightly tapped his mouse, and the whole world went silent.

He muted everyone in the backend, faced with the questioning gazes of David and Marcus, Dean shrugged, "At least it looks like it’s running fine~"