Chapter 994: Concerns in the Food and Beverage Sector
For Chen Mo, the Matrix Shopping Center update in *Oasis* was just a small trick, yet it still stirred up a massive uproar worldwide.
It even sparked concerns and attacks from many giants in the food and beverage industry.
Clearly, the Matrix Shopping Center was a product that "defined how players live in the virtual world," representing a major step forward for humanity toward the "brain in a vat" scenario.
In the most radical science fiction, one might imagine a fantasy like this: one day in the future, the world's resources are exhausted, and most humans only preserve their brains, placed into nutrient pods, surviving on minimal amounts of nutrient fluid each day. Within a vast virtual world, people perform all kinds of jobs, continuing to contribute to society, completely unaware that they exist in an utterly fake reality. They believe the delicious food they eat, the handsome men or beautiful women they meet at night, the houses they live in, and the cars they drive are all real.
Perhaps those delicacies, cars, and houses are just a bunch of code and models, while the partner you spend the rest of your life with is an artificial intelligence crafted by the system based on your preferences.
Some might even wake up by chance, discover the real world, and find it a terrifying nightmare, willing to do anything to return to the virtual world.
Maybe by that day, communism could truly be realized, since in the virtual world, "material abundance" is a given. Even if class divisions still exist, the lowest-level populace could be guaranteed food, clothing, and even most luxuries, allowing ordinary people to enjoy a middle-to-upper-class quality of life.
The "brain in a vat" is a concept that seems both hopeful and horrifying. People yearn for a beautiful future, yet they also want it to be absolutely real.
In the parallel world, people's fears about the "brain in a vat" have never been as severe as today, because such a future seems to be gradually, right before everyone's eyes, becoming reality.
Of course, from the current situation, most people believe the emergence of this technology is good, since the Matrix game pod doesn't affect humans' physical bodies in reality.
However, its impact on many real-world industries is devastating.
The earlier Warm Wardrobe, while also a product based on the virtual world, at least had a physical counterpart in reality—it was an online store that produced tangible clothes. Players bought clothes in the game, but they still had to buy them in reality too.
But the food sector is a different story.
Some multinational fast-food brands, beverage brands, and high-end dining brands have expressed serious concerns about the food system in the Matrix game pod, believing it will severely impact related industries in reality.
Some have even proposed a vision of the future: In the future, everyone will customize "nutrient meals" online. These meals won't taste particularly good, nor particularly bad; their advantage lies in balanced nutrition and convenience. These concentrated quick foods, like nutritionally balanced compressed biscuits or instant noodles, would become humanity's staple food.
Humanity's pursuit of flavor and nutrition would be completely separated. In reality, people would rely on these nutrient meals, with virtually zero demand for taste; in the virtual world, they would indulge in the temptation of delicious food, without worrying about gaining weight or nutritional imbalance, since it's all just code.
Clearly, this vision isn't baseless, as signs are already emerging.
Although there's no supporting evidence yet, many players who purchased the Matrix game pod say their demands for gourmet food in real life are gradually decreasing. If only considering taste, the food in the Matrix game pod is even better than real-world cuisine, and the cost-performance ratio is completely crushing.
In reality, to enjoy a specific delicacy, you need to drive there, wait in line, and spend a lot of money. Money isn't the main issue; the main issue is the time and energy consumed in the process.
Thus, many fast-food brands, beverage brands, and high-end dining brands have explicitly expressed dissatisfaction with the Matrix game pod. Online, both domestically and internationally, articles smearing the "brain in a vat" and the Matrix Shopping Center are endless.
Some media outlets even published articles with a straight face, claiming that the Matrix game pod, like alcohol and poison, is actually using a perverse, physiologically false pleasure to ruin everyone's lives, raising their threshold for happiness to the point where they eventually lose interest in the real world.
There are many similar articles, and some multinational fast-food and beverage brands are considering suing Thunderbolt Interactive, demanding an immediate halt to "the infringement within the Matrix game pod."
For example, the manufacturer of Fat Guy Happy Water is one of them.
Clearly, the Matrix game pod hasn't just taken a slice of their cheese; it's practically taken the entire milk bucket used to make the cheese. What if, in the future, people really stop eating fast food and drinking Fat Guy Happy Water, subsisting on nutrient meals all day, and then go into the virtual world to experience the joy of Fat Guy Happy Water?
That would be a devastating blow for these large food and beverage companies.
Of course, only major brands with patents have objections. For world cuisines and classic famous dishes, any chef can make them, so Chen Mo using them directly is perfectly fine.
The internal attitudes of these big brands are also inconsistent. Some firmly demand that the Matrix Shopping Center remove their food and drinks, so consumers can only enjoy them in reality; others demand that the prices of their food and drinks in the Matrix Shopping Center be raised to match real-world pricing, with a high royalty paid to them.
For instance, the manufacturer of Fat Guy Happy Water takes the latter stance. They demand that the price of Fat Guy Happy Water in the Matrix Shopping Center be raised to three yuan per bottle, with 2.5 yuan per bottle paid as a brand fee.
Clearly, these manufacturers are shrewd. Even if everyone really enters the "brain in a vat" era, for them, it would actually be a case of "earning money while lying down," without even needing to produce anything.
But for Thunderbolt Interactive, this kind of pressure is basically irrelevant.
Chen Mo has the backing of the Game Committee. Domestically, the Matrix game pod is tied to a massive interest group. Chen Mo doesn't even need to worry about these matters; others will naturally find ways to exploit loopholes and skirt the edges to maintain this vast market.
Right now, it's a bit like Chen Mo, along with a large group of people, is grabbing money from the hands of traditional food industry giants. These giants naturally aren't happy, but this money-grabbing behavior definitely won't stop. After all, most of these food industry giants are foreign companies.