The Ubersoft Letters

02: Understanding the Motion of Commerce

Christopher Wright — Thu, 26 May 2005 00:12:57 -0500

My Dear Brian,

Though it has been some time since our last lesson, I am pleased to note that you are employing our greatest weapon -- the blurring of the distinction between license and ownership -- to great effect. I am concerned, however, that you are viewing this as our ultimate objective. While it is true that we would prefer a monolithic computing model that focuses on our products driving the rest of the industry, this is only one of our aims. We have another, larger, grander goal that we are pursuing on a completely different level of the industry, and if successful it will enable us to profit whether we manage to consolidate the industry or not.

In our market -- in any market -- corporations live and die by what they can and cannot sell to their customers. We are successful because we are good at marketing our product. We are doubly successful because we have successfully obscured what our product is.

Many think, with good reason, that our flagship product is our operating system. Others think our operating system is merely a platform we use in order to sell our office suite. Yet others think our product is the entire line of Nifty Doorways software, from operating system to office suite to mouse driver. These are not unreasonable things to believe, but they are all wrong. All of these products bring us wealth, but were it not for our primary product, our flagship product, not one of these items would sell. Any company that restricts its marketing to the physical world is doomed to fail; the truly successful venture is one that sells ideas above all else.

That is what we do: we sell ideas to consumers, concepts that make our more tangible products more palatable to the market. And one of the most important ideas we sell is the idea of cyclical motion.

Things exist, Brian, only when they are in motion. If a human being were to suddenly cease all motion of every kind, it would inevitably cease to live. Without motion the heart does not pump blood, the blood does not deliver oxygen, the body's cells starve and die. Motion is the key to existence, and for motion to exist, the body must be fed. As it is with the human body, so it is with human industry -- to exist, it cannot rest: it must remain in constant, uninterrupted motion. Whoever can cause, guide and maintain this motion will profit most from it... and this is our goal.

If someone were to create a computer that was fast enough to play every game, compute every algorithm, calculate every spreadsheet, and format every document our industry would stumble. If someone were to create a program that did everything anyone needed, our industry would collapse. Markets work best when a customer's need exceeds, by a small margin, what is possible. This is because they will buy a product for what it can do now, but keep an eye out for the next version, which will meet the needs the current version cannot. By that time, of course, a skillful marketer will have insinuated new needs into the customer's psyche -- needs that are not met by the new version, but which will be addressed by the one that follows.

That is how a market is kept in motion: by butting up against the barrier of what is possible, or by creating such a barrier if none exists.

For the last 23 years computers have been designed based on roughly the same model -- an unremarkable (by today's standards) computer with an unremarkable processor with a wholly unremarkable 640k of memory. For the last 23 years the market has dynamically expanded because customers always wanted a computer to do slightly more than it was capable of doing. We may be nearing a point, however, where something drastic will have to change in the market in order for it to remain healthy: we have nearly reached the point where anyone will be able to use a computer for any reasonable task without exceeding its limitations.

Personal computers can now be used to edit film, record music, animate graphics -- things that required professional-grade workstations ten years ago. And when we reach that point -- the point when a computer can do everything the customer expects of it -- what then? At that point a computer will be little more than a very complicated toaster. There are companies who make money selling toasters, but their profit margins are much smaller than ours.

Respectfully,
The Dark Lord of Ubersoft

01: Doublespeak and Tweenspeech

Christopher Wright — Thu, 26 May 2005 00:10:05 -0500

My Dear Brian,

Perhaps our greatest achievement to date has been our ability to convince people to spend enormous sums of money to purchase software that they do not, in fact, own. The idea of product licensing has so thoroughly saturated the computer industry that no piece of software exists without one -- the government even created a license to cover unlicensed programs, which it calls "public domain."

Of course you understand the idea behind the software license, but permit me to explain it nonetheless, simply to satisfy my own rhetorical aestheticism. In our industry, the sole owner of a program is the person who programmed it, unless he specifically transfers those rights to someone else. At Ubersoft, our programmers sign away their rights to the bounty of their work to us -- a sacrifice they are reimbursed handsomely for. Therefore, any software that comes out of Ubersoft is owned by Ubersoft, and is ours to do with as we wish.

We are not in the business of selling software, we are in the business of selling our permission for someone else to use that software. This is extremely advantageous for us for many reasons, but one of the most advantageous (and most deliciously ironic) is that despite the fact that the customer owns nothing, he feels as though he does.

Each customer, despite the fact that he is licensing our software under our conditions and on our terms, feels as though the operating system on his machine belongs to him, the word processor that runs on that operating system belongs to him, the e-mail program that is integrated with that operating system belongs to him, and the web browser that he uses to download naughty pictures from any number of web sites in that eternally useless entity known as "The Web" belongs to him as well.

In fact, unless he is a programmer himself, every single piece of software on his machine is owned by someone else. If he is required to pay nothing for it, and can use it in any way he chooses, it is only because the license attached to the program gives him explicit permission to do so. If he may make innumerable copies of that program and hand those copies out to anyone he pleases, it is due to the authority of that very same license and nothing else. Even the free software community relies on the strength of software licenses to protect their much lauded flexibility and "open" development environment.

As I said, this is well known to you. What you may not know is how, exactly, this came to be.

Many people accuse us of swindling and defrauding the public with our licenses -- what they fail to realize is, we never deny or pretend to do anything other than what we actually do. We never acknowledge any form of ownership or rights on the side of our customers, we own the software, and we can do whatever we wish with it. They use it at our discretion, and the right to use that software can be revoked when they use it in a manner that displeases us. We are wholly and completely honest and forthright in our dealings in this manner, and yet people walk away, holding little more than a cardboard box in their hands, feeling as if they now own something.

Rationally they know they own nothing; but viscerally, emotionally, they believe they own what they have bought. In this manner we maintain our control over our product and our customers do not chafe. Everyone is happy, equilibrium is maintained, and we remain in control.

How did we instill this wondrous illusion of ownership while never once suggesting that it was true -- in fact, stating vehemently that it was not? The short, pithy, and somewhat inaccurate answer is that we used "magic." The longer, more involved and far more precise response is that we have used the inherent flexibility of language to allow words to contain dual and often opposing meanings.

When George Orwell wrote "1984," he described a dystopian world wherein the powers that be used a device known as "Doublespeak" to keep its citizens obedient. Doublespeak is an interesting but terribly crude concept -- essentially, words with opposing meanings are treated as the same thing: hate is love, war is peace, slavery is freedom, that sort of thing. By making both words equivalent, the population had no vocabulary capable of effectively sustaining disobedience and revolution. How can you even conceive of fighting for your freedom when your first thought is that it is the same as slavery? In effect, Doublespeak causes opposite concepts to nullify each other, creating a vocabulary filled with no ideology whatsoever, and promoting a compliant, malleable citizenry.

Though Orwell's book was startling, and caused many to examine their authority figures with far more scrutiny than I find comfortable, we are fortunate that his views on shaping and conditioning people were much cruder and far less accurate than his insight on the desire to control, and to control utterly. Orwell's problem was that he approached the entire task completely backwards. He can be forgiven for this, because he was a trailblazer in the science, and his heart wasn't really in it -- he wanted to warn, not encourage. Still, it is a cumbersome thing to convince a human being that two opposing words mean the same thing. It is far simpler, and much more effective in the long run, to convince a human being that one word can mean two completely different things entirely.

You can spend three or four years trying to convince someone that there is no difference between peace and war; you can take half an hour to fourty-five minutes and convince someone that when you perform an act that is associated with the word "war," and you tell them it is "peace," that the act in question, is, in fact, an act of peace. Have you noticed that "peace-keeping forces" are always armed? This is a perfect example of what I am talking about.

We take a word, embrace its original meaning, and add a new, opposing meaning to it. We use the same word and practice both meanings at alternate intervals until either meaning will be accepted without question, and then use whichever meaning suits our purposes. I call this "Tweenspeech" -- the science of attaching two conflicting meanings to the same word, and jumping between them as it suits your purpose.

It is very important that you understand this concept, as it is a fundamental part of everything we do. To illustrate Tweenspeech in action, I will explain how we used its principles to create the current ambiguity in the meaning of the word "ownership" that allows us to have the free reign we have with software licenses today.

When you think of ownership, you think of something that is yours and no-one else's. Especially in the United States, where the ideology of Capitalism reigns supreme, this definition is so deeply ingrained that it would be very difficult to convince anyone that ownership means anything else. For this reason, we did not start by trying to convince people that "ownership" had anything in common with "licensing"... instead, we started from the opposite end of the spectrum. We introduced the idea that "licensing" software really wasn't all that different from "owning" it.

Note the use of quotes. The first step in diluting a word is to insist that it have a primarily theoretical rather than practical meaning. If it is only a theory, than any real-world example must therefore be approximations and open to interpretation.

Most of our customers thought of their property in very specific ways. The trick, we decided, was to get our customers to think of software in the same manner -- all the while never once allowing for any ambiguity as to who really owned it. We always and adamantly maintained our ownership over the software, as that protected our legal claims to our intellectual property in court. At the same time, we subtly encouraged the customer to feel as if they owned the software, whether they actually did or not.

In our product documentation we talk about "your software" or "your licensed software," usually in the same sentence as "your computer" or "your CD-Rom drive" or "your hard drive." There is an important difference between "your software" and "your computer" -- it is quite likely that the customer actually owns the computer, while as we both know the software is actually owned by Ubersoft. When we say "your software" it is actually shorthand for "the software you have licensed from Ubersoft, Incorporated." Fortunately for us there is no distinction in the English language between both uses of the word "your," and this lack of distinction creates confusion that we exploit aggressively -- it is inevitable that on some level the customer will associate "your software" with "your computer."

Our help desk technicians, when talking to customers, also refer to the software as "your software," and they further this by asking for "your serial number, which is on the back of your CD's jewel case." Again, "your" is merely shorthand, but again it is usually lost on the customer.

We take great pains to make the interface of every program immediately accessible. We want at least a certain level of ease of use... the customer must feel as though the program were designed with him or her in mind. Further, we make each program at least superficially customizable, allowing a customer to change colors, modify toolbars, that sort of thing. When a customer can leave a mark on a program, it feels more like it belongs to him.

We market our consumer products specifically with the idea of ownership in mind. One of our most successful messages is that "computers change your life, for the better." We invoke the biggest and most important piece of property an individual owns -- his life -- and we associate it with software. "UberWordSoftPro makes your life easier, and brings you closer to others."

The other thing we do, probably one of the most effective ways we have of associating the purchase of software with owning it, is that we make customers pay for it -- and we call it that. One does not rent Nifty Doorways, nor does one lease it: one buys it, in a store, and one takes it home. The words "buy" and "purchase" are very strongly associated with "ownership."

All of this is done to soften the meaning of the word "license," to introduce a "feeling" of what that word means which runs counter to its true definition. By tweening the word "license," we pave the way for an even greater success... the tweening of the word "ownership."

Even now I can sense you wondering where this is going, what it is all leading up to.

Once upon a time, before the advent of the Personal Computer, software ran on mainframes, and people sat at "dumb terminals" in order to use that software. No one was particularly happy with this, because they disliked the lack of control -- they didn't "own" it. We saw a great opportunity, and when the PC was born we rode the wave of "distributed computing," positioning ourselves as the champions of freedom and independence. Customers hailed us as heroes, flocked to us in droves, because to them we were representing what they wanted -- the opportunity to own and control their computers and software.

We chose this course because it allowed us to greatly increase our customer base, but the old mainframe model of computing had many advantages: for example, it was much easier to maintain, and therefore cheaper to develop and to support. If customers could be brought to accept this business model, it would be ideal -- development costs are kept at a minimum while profits are maximized, because you are the only source of the software, and your control over it is absolute. Unfortunately, people had strong feelings against such a model, because it conflicted with their natural desires to possess.

We led them astray, however, with the single-minded intent of bringing them back into the fold. Over the last two decades we have been making the non-ownership of a program feel remarkably like ownership, and customers are no longer as quick to see any distinction between the two. In time we will be able to effectively say the word "license" and immediately cue the emotional response "ownership." It will ultimately enable us to convince our customers to agree to a subscription model of software use, where they rent our applications for a certain length of time, all the while feeling as if they actually owned it. Combine this with our Ubersoft.NIT initiative, and you have a holy grail of the computer business world: the return to the mainframe business without any of the stigma. The customer will feel like he owns everything and will effectively own nothing -- and remain wholly ignorant of that fact.

Tweenspeech does this... and it can do much more.

Respectfully,
The Dark Lord of Ubersoft

Introduction

Christopher Wright — Thu, 26 May 2005 00:07:00 -0500

My Dear Brian,

I chuckle at the thought of your first reaction to this letter -- I am almost certain that you opened the envelope expecting to be fired, due to "thought-crimes" or other some such accusations of disloyalty to Ubersoft. In fact, I am pleased to tell you the truth of the matter is quite the opposite: you are being promoted.

Yes, your recent questions regarding our methods of doing business have drawn plenty of attention. And yes, in many instances such questions are grounds for termination of employment. In fact, in most instances, such questions are grounds for termination immediately... this ensures that the Ubersoft Marketing division functions as a single unit, with no appearance of dissension ever reaching the public's eye.

Your questioning, however, has been different from the norm. It shows a unique desire to find the methods behind the apparent madness of our industry. It shows a desire to learn, and the ability to accept the consequences of possessing that knowledge.

That is why you are receiving this letter.

Everyone who works in our industry long enough eventually faces what amounts to nothing less than a crisis of the spirit. Every young executive eventually comes face to face with the inevitable questions of our industry: why do we operate the way we do? Why do we promote products, for example, that we haven't even begun to develop? Why do we create products of poor quality when it is not appreciably difficult to create products of good or even excellent quality? Why do we habitually lie to our customers when it's been shown that being truthful to and fostering a positive relationship with them creates much stronger consumer loyalty?

Anyone of any moderate intellect can see that something is strange about our industry: we get away with practices that would never be considered permissible in, say, the automobile industry. We promise to deliver products to market quickly, and after we have delivered them years behind schedule, we claim to have actually done so.

And people believe us.

And the money we spend on these tactics is unbelievable! Ubersoft has hired an army of lawyers and public relations firms to keep our reputation strong despite the years, even decades of broken promises, unmet expectations, and empty, meaningless hype.

So it is only natural--in fact it is obligatory--for people in our line of business to begin to question why we do the things we do, and why we don't do the things we claim we will.

There is no reason, for example, that Ubersoft cannot be the company we claim to be. Our programmers are more than capable (when not indulging in excess), our marketing machine is top-notch, our resources are indescribably vast... if we so chose, we could create quality products that far outstripped our competitors. They could in fact be the stable, reliable, mission-critical systems we advertise them to be. And with our already vast resources, we could lock down and control this market in a way that would not raise the suspicions of the Department of Justice... we could be a legal monopoly, and continue to be rich.

You reached this realization a few months ago, Brian, just as everyone in your line work does at some point in his or her career. And you began to wonder why, and you tried to find answers. And then you reached the place that everyone does: the crossroads. You were faced with one of four possible conclusions, and you chose.

Some choose to continue forward as though nothing was wrong: to believe, in effect, the hype rather than the truth. These are the deluded, and they are useful only because they are loyal. They continue down their path, content that everything they see is real, content that we really do produce the best software on earth, that nothing is ever better than this, that our excuses are real. They never advance beyond a certain point. They work as advocates, PR representatives, and middle-managers.

Some decide that the reason we do what we do is to ensure that we sustain our market. If we created stable products, they reason, people would no longer need to buy new computer software, and we would be out of business. This is a ludicrous position, of course: when you solve a problem, that problem changes. Creating a database that reliably stores a certain kind of data also creates a market for using that data in a way no one has ever used it before... and thus there is impetus to extend that application, and there is still demand for a new release.

Some come to believe we are too short-sighted to understand the advantages of sacrificing short-term gain in order to cultivate greater long-term benefits. This is an understandable position; all actions point to it. We certainly squeeze every nickel we possibly can out of the market, we ruthlessly exploit our competitors and force them into nearly untenable agreements that give us every benefit and saddle them with every responsibility. We inflate prices when we can, and undercut all competitors to ensure that even if we cannot pad our profits we can at least maximize them by forcing everyone to buy solely from us.

Some, however, see beyond our apparent acts of folly, and suspect something more. They see the intellect of the people involved and feel it incongruous that individuals of such obvious mental acumen would not be so fundamentally stupid. So what, then, would account for our activities?

Some believe we are simply arrogant, and believe ourselves untouchable. This is an easy assumption to make, since many (even most) of us do display arrogance in our day to day interactions with the unwashed sea of humanity. But we are not arrogant because we believe we have already won... we are arrogant because we see who oppose us, and know that victory is inevitable.

Others believe we are paranoid, to such a degree that we cannot allow anyone or anything to prosper at our perceived expense. This, too, is an easy assumption to make -- because it is, to a certain extent, correct. We are paranoid, and we do not want anyone else to prosper at our expense. But we are not paranoid because we feel that any company can rise up and bring us to our knees (though we may say so on camera or before a judge or Congressional hearing)... we are paranoid because it is natural and healthy for successful captains of industry to be so.

Most of the people who reach this point settle on either of the two possibilities as "the truth," and go no further. They are content in believing that we are either arrogant, or paranoid, or both, and accept those traits as our motivation. Some continue to work for us, and are useful... there is always a need for the cynical and amoral in every organization. Some even attain high-level positions within our organization. Some embrace the arrogance, or paranoia, some laugh at it, and some simply ignore it and get on with their lives. But all of them believe they understand why we are what we are, and on that level they are satisfied.

But they are wrong.

And then there are some, a very few, an exceedingly rare breed of men and women who are not content with this explanation. They try to look further, to look beyond all appearances. They see that we do what we do, and see the drive and dedication we have, and they realize that this drive is not petty... so why would it be focused on such petty acts of mercenary economic warfare? These are the people that see our motives without actually understanding our actions, and suspect that beyond all the pettiness, beyond all the cutthroat business, beyond all the short-sighted strategies and short-term goals, there is a grand design.

In short, they suspect that we know exactly what we're doing. They suspect we have a master plan.

They are correct. You are correct. All your suspicions are correct... there is something more than what you've seen, there is a plan that I have laid out from the beginning. And you, Brian, will be a part of this plan. Many have suggested, and I agree, that you are ready to take the next step. To learn the secrets, and be part of our greater purpose.

In the next few weeks I will be sending you more letters, introducing you to the concepts and methods that we are using to put this plan into effect. When I am done with my tutelage you will be one of an elite few who are actually steering the course of our industry, and by extension, the world.

Welcome, Brian. Learn your lessons carefully, and do not tell anyone what you read here. If the world were to learn what you will, all would be undone.

Respectfully,
The Dark Lord of Ubersoft

The Ubersoft Letters

Christopher Wright — Wed, 25 May 2005 04:10:05 -0500

The Dark Lord of Ubersoft explains to Brian, a Vice-President of Marketing, all the dirty little secrets of the Computer Industry.

With apologies to C. S. Lewis.