"Serve the people!" The words were so simple and unpretentious, yet when Sol heard them, he felt an inexplicable surge of excitement, an urge to throw himself into it.
Of course, impulse was just impulse. Upon remembering his current rather decent job, he immediately abandoned the urge and quietly upgraded his contracted plan. He switched from the $59 per month package to $99 per month.
Although this was clearly a bit wasteful, Sol felt his actions were meaningful.
That evening, upon returning home, Sol still felt somewhat stirred. He decided to write a post about his evening's observations and published it on Weibo, attaching a title he impulsively concocted: "Versailles and Stark are the best in the world!"
After finishing, Sol felt a wave of fatigue and went straight to bed, unaware of the stir his post would create.
Firstly, because the post was published on a mobile forum, the first to see it were many purchasers of the Tianxing 5. Their initial reaction was disbelief, thinking it was mere merchant advertising. A 24-hour business hall? That was impossible.
Even more so, such an attitude of serving the people. It must all be fake, absolutely fake!
So, when doubt arose, their first reaction was to immediately drive out and verify.
The verification method was simple. Stark was small and couldn't have service points on every street like China's Unicom and Telecom. However, having a service point in every city was achievable.
But a city is vast. Wouldn't it take a long time to reach a service point, wouldn't it be too much trouble?
Trouble? They weren't afraid, as long as they had a car.
In the United States, those who could afford the Tianxing 5 were generally car owners. After all, the money for the Tianxing 5 was enough to buy a second-hand Mercedes-Benz in the US.
Moreover, at night, road conditions were excellent. Even in 2022, only a few intersections in major cities had infrared cameras that could capture traffic violations at night.
In 2021, it was likely only in large cities like New York and Washington that such equipment was installed; other cities had none.
Therefore, one could completely disregard speed limits and traffic rules, driving at full speed to any part of the city in just ten to twenty minutes.
This was why racing games like "Need for Speed" or "Fast & Furious" seemed to have no fear of traffic lights in the US, allowing for leisurely night-time street racing. As long as one didn't encounter police patrols, there was no need to worry about fines.
So, those who were keen to verify quickly drove to the Stark service points within the city and were astonished to find that these service points were indeed open. Furthermore, almost every service point, as mentioned in the post, offered free hot porridge and free accommodation for the homeless.
Of course, some shops couldn't provide accommodation because they were small, having only a storefront and nothing else.
However, the staff stated that they had found new service points, and the new points were under renovation, with ample space for accommodation. They could come back to check the new store in half a month.
Those who went to investigate quickly returned home, sharing their experiences on the forum. The majority who didn't go were stunned.
But they still didn't quite believe it, so more people chose to drive and verify. At one point, some shops received over 80 people who drove over to confirm the facts in a single night. This even alerted the local police, with four or five police cars parked outside the shops for guard duty.
Well, it wasn't that they feared any unexpected situations, but rather that these police officers found many people speeding. If they caught just one person on the way, they would receive a considerable commission.
That's right. In the US, police officers who catch traffic violations receive a commission. Otherwise, why would they sit behind monitoring screens? The monitoring cameras automatically captured violations, but it required them to personally catch offenders on the road, working hard on-site.
If there were no tangible rewards, why would these police officers run around in the middle of the night? They weren't public servants; they were simply employees who punched in and out on time.
After a night of chaos, the situation began to escalate further.
Those who went to join the excitement that night were basically buyers of the Tianxing 5. They could also conveniently get a contracted plan for themselves, enabling their brick-like phones to work.
At the same time, they also wrote posts about what they had seen. While not everyone wrote, perhaps only one out of ten did, there were thousands who went to join the excitement. So, overnight, there were hundreds of posts related to the Tianxing 5 phone.
By the next day, these numerous posts naturally flowed from the Tianxing 5 phone forum section to other mobile phone forum sections.
More mobile phone users saw the posts on the forum and their experiences at Stark Mobile Communications.
Although these users were not interested in the Tianxing 5 phone because it was too expensive and they couldn't afford it, they were very interested in the contract plans mentioned in the posts for Stark Mobile Communications.
$19 for 100 minutes of talk time, 100 text messages, and, most importantly, 100MB of data. This was unheard of, an incredible bargain!
As mentioned before, in the US, 100 minutes of talk time cost almost $20, which was equivalent to the talk time provided by this package.
Now, they were also getting an extra 100 text messages. Text messages were cheap, but 100MB of data was extraordinary.
At this time, the US was still in the 2G era, and data was prohibitively expensive. 1MB of data cost as much as 50 cents, so 100MB of data would cost around $50. Now, with a $19 contract, one could get services worth about $70 from other providers. Was there such a good deal in the world?
Moreover, data was something that was always insufficient, especially in the US where many industries were highly developed. There were many things on mobile phones that were not available in China, which were very stimulating and could consume several dollars of data in the blink of an eye without stopping.
Although a two-year contract was required, along with a five-month deposit.
But with such a low price, even if they were asked to commit for 20 years, they would be willing to do so. After all, based on their experience, with the continuous depreciation of the dollar and inflation, the price of everything increased over time. It was very likely that the same package would cost $40 in the future, so they welcomed fixed contracts and prices.
As for the deposit, it wasn't as if it wouldn't be returned. If one genuinely intended to sign a contract, they wouldn't care about a five-month deposit.
Thus, many other mobile phone users who saw these posts flocked to Stark Mobile Communications service points to inquire, and to their surprise, it was true.
Moreover, this contract didn't require purchasing their phones; it could be bound to any phone simply by changing the SIM card.
No one would refuse such a good deal. As a result, over half of the users who visited ended up signing up for a new phone card, somewhat bewildered.
The remaining half mostly returned within a few days to change their phone cards.
Meanwhile, these posts continued to spread.
Some people re-edited these posts, originally from forums, compiled them into text, and published them on Weibo, quickly attracting the attention of many netizens. Then, miraculously, it trended on Weibo.
Well, it was very difficult for other matters to trend on Weibo; it often required tens of thousands of dollars to hire internet trolls to reach the top of the trending list.
But for something that netizens spontaneously generated to so easily trend was truly remarkable.
Once it trended, the impact was tremendous. Some netizens saw the news on the trending list and became curious about what had happened at Stark Communications. They then looked up Stark Communications' corporate information. Some resourceful netizens even obtained the filings from the US Department of Commerce. In the filings, they discovered that Stark's controlling shareholder was no longer the previous Rhymme, but the American Priority Group, and its chairman had become Versailles, with Malik Omar appointed as the company's president.
What? Malik Omar became the president of Stark Company, and this Stark Company was the one that previously beat up Malik Omar? What happened?
Thus, the netizens' curiosity was thoroughly piqued. Some resourceful netizens even contacted an insider at Stark Company.
This anonymous insider briefly explained the process of Malik's rise to power. That is, Stark, under the impact of public opinion, faced the explosion of years of debt, the company teetered on the brink, and employees demanding wages blocked the entrance. Then, Malik's boss, Madame Versailles, personally led people to seek justice for her employees.
Upon learning of Stark's situation, she directly and dominantly bought the entire Stark Company and then immediately appointed Malik Omar as the company's president. Finally, she declared to all employees, "If any company dares to insult my employees, I will buy that company for my employees and then have everyone in the company undergo re-education!"
Yes, that's right. One-fifth of the company's employees were already attending anti-discrimination education classes, and the remaining four-fifths would rotate through education within the next month.
Good heavens, that was Versailles to the extreme!
There was no doubt about the massive wave that such an event would create when exposed online.