Chapter 489: Earning Less is a Loss

That the television Manufacturers would surely seek him out for Mediation was something Zhou Yi could have anticipated.

It was just that the person who called started off by saying that as long as he withdrew the Litigation, any demand could be met, which left Zhou Yi quite puzzled.

"I say, sir, you say any demand can be met, but didn't I already state my demands earlier? As long as you fulfill them, I will naturally withdraw the Litigation. Why go through all this extra trouble?" Zhou Yi countered.

Zhou Yi had already stated his demands when that so-called senior customer service supervisor called before: everything must be laid out in the open!

It is fine for you to have Boot Advertisements, but set up a policy; promote them to those who can accept them, and advertising revenue doesn't necessarily have to be split—there are memberships in cooperation with third-party platforms, and many, many other methods.

For those who do not accept them, clearly turn them off before the consumer buys the TV; it is technically very easy to operate.

Instead of how it is now, where all Smart TVs have Boot Advertisements by default, and if you don't agree, you have to expend a massive amount of effort to find customer service, communicate, complain, and even be forced to be tough and get into an argument with customer service just to turn them off.

This might seem like there is no difference, but the difference is truly enormous!

You could even interpret mandatory Boot Advertisements as a form of mandatory PUA!

Our consumers are actually really good; as long as you don't go too far, normally, how many people would look for trouble for no reason?

As for why there aren't many people looking for trouble, I won't go into other aspects.

Our laws do not apply the principle of "Punitive Damages" regarding Tort, so even if you go to court, sometimes the loss outweighs the gain.

But look at the United States; there are often compensation amounts with particularly large numbers, and that thing is called Punitive Damages.

Coupled with the fact that in the United States, the cut from Risk Agency has reached a level that makes people gape in astonishment, their lawyers are therefore extremely keen on this kind of Litigation.

Risk Agency combined with Collective Litigation and Punitive Damages—to put it bluntly, one case might be enough to live off of... of course, for the lawyer.

Zhou Yi naturally has to sign contracts with others when spending money here; he can certainly accept Mediation if the other party agrees to his demands, which is no problem.

It makes no sense to insist on fighting this lawsuit when the other party has agreed to your demands, because if you win the lawsuit, that is the situation you end up with anyway; if you don't agree then, the judge will even come to your door to persuade you.

So, as soon as Zhou Yi heard the other party's words, he knew his previous demands had again been dismissed as wishful thinking.

Sure enough, the man on the phone hesitated and said, "Mr. Zhou, have you stated your demands before?"

But the man quickly reacted and said, "You mean those from before? But... Mr. Zhou, look, let's lay our cards on the table; we did indeed do something wrong, so we are sincerely apologizing to you."

"We can provide you with a larger compensation in financial terms; as for the issue regarding the Boot Advertisement, there is no need for you to do this; this has nothing to do with you..."

Zhou Yi understood; or rather, having been so persistent all the way here, no one believed he was truly doing it for those inexplicable demands.

The current social moral view is: everyone sweeps the snow from their own doorstep and ignores the frost on their neighbor's roof.

You feel unhappy? Fine, we apologize to you; if you want money, we can also give you more money.

But if you say you want us to change our business strategy, and that changing it might very well mean earning much less money in a year, then that won't do.

You have to know, no matter how much compensation is given to one person, there is a limit.

But if such a demand were truly agreed to, advertising revenue would directly decrease by a lot.

Advertisers aren't stupid; setting Boot Advertisements on one million TVs at once versus setting them on some and not others are two completely different concepts.

For the Company, this is equivalent to cutting off their own flesh!

Of course, will the Company be unable to survive because of this?

That is certainly not the case; if the Company couldn't survive just because profits decreased, it would only mean its time had come.

This is not a matter of hurting the bones or muscles, it is just earning less than before...

So Zhou Yi looked at the 65% progress on the panel and smiled: "You people, you are always like this; no one has ever understood me."

"The conditions are just these conditions; if you can agree, I will withdraw the Litigation. If you cannot agree and only offer me compensation, then forget it. I have signed contracts with tens of thousands of people; do you know how much money I would need to pay if I committed a Breach of Contract?"

You have your reasons, and I have mine; I have already signed contracts with everyone, and if I were to take the money and say I won't fight the lawsuit, I wouldn't even dare to imagine the consequences.

The man on the phone was silent for a moment, wanting to say something more, but Zhou Yi had already hung up.

The conditions have been given to you; it depends on whether you agree or not.

Inside the office of Hai Li Company, the Vice President of Marketing reported the previous call and then said: "President Ma, that is how things are. The other party said that only if we agree to those conditions will he withdraw the Litigation."

Ma Peng felt his heart was about to explode; although he had already cursed countless times, he still wanted to curse. Why are there such people in this world? They are just sick!

I am even willing to give you money, and a large amount at that, but the other person didn't even listen, which even made him have an illusion: in this day and age, is money useless?

This kind of sentiment is just like how that person who wrote a diary back then couldn't understand why there were always people on the other side willing to give up all their family property to support the **.

"Then, President Ma, do we agree?"

"Agree my ass! How can we agree? Do you know how much our profits will drop if we agree!" Ma Peng replied in a direct rage.

Trying to cut flesh from capital is harder than ascending to heaven.

"Inform the other companies of this situation; let them see for themselves anyway. We are not the only ones being sued now!" Ma Peng said directly.

This is also why there is no such urgency yet; if Hai Li were the only Defendant, they would have already been anxious enough to hit the wall.

But thinking that there are so many peers in the same boat, there is nothing to fear. People are like this, and companies are too; they are all about the same.

Why should you all want Hai Li to handle it? That is impossible; if you aren't anxious, I'm not anxious either.

When there are three monks, there is no water to drink; that is perfectly normal.

Soon, Zhou Yi's conditions were known to many Manufacturers.

The initial reactions were all about the same; some were angry, while others were surprised, feeling that A Yi was truly too strange.

If you say a rich person does charity, that is indeed common, but a rich person willing to take their own money to oppose other rich people—that feels very hard to understand.

The other party also runs a company; aren't they afraid that one day their own company will be treated the same way?

But after the surprise, the problem still had to be solved.

However, everyone's thoughts were about the same as Ma Peng's: this is simply impossible to agree to.

Why have Boot Advertisements? It is to make money. If you agree to these conditions, the money earned might be much less; this contradiction is irreconcilable.

Capital is profit-seeking, and capital is also short-sighted...

That's right, anyway, there are so many companies; the problem has to be solved eventually, so no one is in a hurry.

After all, they were competitors before, nearly fighting until their brains were smashed for market share; now, asking them to sit down and talk properly to solve the problem is impossible.

Unless it is a matter of life and death.

However, under such circumstances, some people's thinking began to change.

Xiaoli, also a large television Manufacturer, and also a subsidiary boss under a group Company, Wang Yuanming was equally furious after hearing similar news at the beginning.

But after his anger subsided, he suddenly thought of a problem: there seemed to be a business opportunity in this!

Before this, no Company had ever shared profits with consumers; it had never happened!

What happens to the first person to eat crab in the business world? Either they fall and die, or they take off directly!

The reason he could have this idea so quickly was that the mobile phone business of the Xiaoli Company was built on unprecedentedly low prices.

It compressed the net profit of a single mobile phone to an unbelievable level, directly muddying the waters of the smartphone market.

So what about this time? Amidst such heat and rhythm, if the Company announced it would be the first to share Boot Advertisement fees with users, what would happen?

The annual advertising revenue for one television might only be a few dozen yuan, and sharing it with them might only amount to a little over ten yuan, which could easily be offset by the price of the hardware.

Not only that, but it could be bought out in one go, which would allow the price to be pushed even lower, but they must be given money—this is the key point!

As for the rest, the wool comes from the sheep anyway; the hardware price being pushed so low is the result of everyone's internal involution.

They say "three in the morning and four in the evening" is a joke, but many companies now are that monkey keeper...

Thinking about it this way, it feels like there is something to be done...

Wang Yuanming hurriedly prepared to report to the parent Company; if possible, he could not let this hot topic pass, as one can only fly when standing in the path of the wind.

Regardless of how the television Manufacturers cursed, the first batch of Lawsuits had already entered the review period; our Collective Litigation is actually not called by that name, the accurate term should be Ordinary Joint Litigation.

Its essence is independent individual Litigation, just with the same subject matter, so they can be merged for trial.

For joint Lawsuits, if the number of people is large, a few representatives can be chosen to participate; this is also for the convenience of the trial, as the Court cannot possibly try this pile of cases one by one, which is not realistic.

But the review work must be done...

Consequently, the hair of the judges at the Beijing Internet Court also began to fall out rapidly, but fortunately, there were many "ox and horse" Interns.

The Interns might not have had that much ability, but they had good bodies!

Comparing whether these Lawsuits were the same, this work was not that difficult.

Thus, after working overtime until they were almost exhausted, the first batch was finally reviewed clearly and Case Filing was completed.

Those television Manufacturers all received the Indictment, and some became anxious.

But anxiety is anxiety, and he did not want to agree to Zhou Yi's demands, so the situation became very strange.

However, for the Netizens, this was like the New Year.

We don't care about anything else; we have been disgusted by this matter for a long time. It is indeed a small matter, as it seems fine to just wait thirty seconds every time it boots up.

But it is like a fishbone in the throat, always making people feel uncomfortable.

Now that someone has finally stood up to do something, why hesitate? Just f***ing do it and be done with it!

As for those who advocate that doing this will make many television Manufacturers unable to survive and then affect our society and so on... everyone says, why didn't you say it had a big impact when we were being wantonly subjected to Tort before?

It is truly absurd. Everyone knows that doing this is wrong, and everyone knows this is Tort, but just because we are consumers and we are only individuals, we have no way to resist, so no one speaks for us, right?

Now that we have finally resisted once, so many people have jumped out to speak for the enterprises?

The Beijing Internet Court also thought about Mediation, but after contacting both sides a few times, they gave up the idea.

In Zhou Yi's words, he does not even count as a Plaintiff now.

And those Plaintiffs on the internet are all filled with righteous indignation; what Mediation or no Mediation? We begged and pleaded to turn off the ads, but the result was that it was impossible.

Now, we are not turning them off, we are going to have a Lawsuit, and the result is that you say it can be turned off? Are you kidding me!

So since there is no way to mediate, prepare for the court session. Fortunately, there are previous precedents, so for cases that are basically identical, the court trial is actually not troublesome at all.

It was another suitable day for a court session, which Zhou Yi specifically found someone to look up.

It is said that there are no taboos for having a Lawsuit on this day.

The Beijing Internet Court was still live-streaming the trial, and although the internet onlookers had already watched it last time, they all ran in to watch again this time.

To put it bluntly, all the hot topics during this period were about Boot Advertisement; whether this celebrity was holding a concert or that celebrity released a new song, the headlines were suppressed completely.

Not to mention the revelations about the "little fresh meat" idols, which were of no use at all.

But just after entering, they discovered that sitting where the Plaintiff Lawyer should be was a beautiful professional woman with a stunning appearance!

With that figure and that look, plus that professional attire... for a time, bullet comments like "Sister, step on me with your high heels" were everywhere, and then, unsurprisingly, a bunch of accounts were banned.

The Plaintiff Lawyer was naturally Zhou Xinran; Fang Dazhuang had no interest in such a case where even a dog could win.

Every time Zhou Yi went to see him, he could only see the other party writing something.

It is said that he wants to turn this Collective Litigation into a classic case or something to study carefully.

There were no surprises at the trial scene; although Zhou Xinran was trying her best, compared to Fang Dazhuang, she just lacked that kind of passion.

However, there were still many people watching...

Just like some beautiful teachers who become popular on the internet, university teachers with extremely high looks, or teachers of Mao Zedong Thought, and then it is said that every class is packed; shall we say those students are really there to listen to the lecture?

It is embarrassing to point them out, okay!

The batch being sued today is still the Hai Li Company; the other party's legal director was expressionless, as the result was already predetermined before the trial.

Collective Litigation also has to be done one by one; one batch sues one Company.

Today is Hai Li, tomorrow will be another, and the day after tomorrow will be the third, and the second batch of Litigation is already under review and ready to be filed at any time.

The number of people this time is even larger...

Some bosses have really been unable to resist the urge to hire someone to kill; it wouldn't matter if one person sued, but with so many people suing, not only does everyone have to be compensated, but the Litigation Fee must also be borne by the Company.

Once this is done, the money the Company pays will be a huge number, not to mention that public opinion is still fermenting, and many Self-Media are riding the wave of popularity, publicly smashing their own televisions and then buying those televisions without Boot Advertisement...

Consequently, those few companies without Boot Advertisement are about to make a fortune; it is said that the president of a certain Company almost wanted to publicly thank his peers for the opportunity...

In addition, he righteously refuted the claim that being serious would make television Manufacturers unable to survive, saying that as long as one abides by the law and discipline, even if others want to be serious, they cannot.

For example, their Company's turnover has already doubled who knows how many times...

Just as everyone was harboring their own ulterior motives, suddenly, a piece of news exploded across the internet!

Xiaoli Company announced that it has reached a Mediation with all plaintiffs, and furthermore, Xiaoli has become the first television Manufacturer to "pay you to watch TV"!

In an instant, the bosses of other television Manufacturers were dumbfounded; damn this sneaky bastard, we were still here wondering what to do, and you actually went and surrendered publicly?

The morning throat-soothing chapter is here, good morning everyone! Thanks to Brother Xiaoyan, another new brother, Wenchidage, thanks to the brothers for the tips, thank you.

(End of this chapter)