经济学人阅读｜扉页文章 The（dust up）

03.14｜经济学人阅读｜扉页文章 The dust-up

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今天羚羊君（公众：aa-acad）给大家分享的是经济学人2021年02月27日期刊中扉页文章的第一篇：The dust-up

这篇文章阐述了科技公司在新时期的发展和变化-科技公司将更加开放，以及这种开放性竞争所带来的影响。

想要阅读往期内容，可以在公众号右下角点击"更多资讯-长文阅读"进入专栏。

01

The dust-up

科技公司的暗流涌动

The idea of the technology industry being dominated by monopolies is so widely held that it has monopolised much thinking, from investors’ strategies to antitrust watchdogs’ legal briefs. Yet, as we explain, it is getting harder to sustain (see Business section). After a long period of ossication, the industry is entering a dynamic phase. In America digital markets are shifting towards oligopolies, in which second and third rms compete vigorously against the incumbent. The big tech rms are wrestling over customers and data: witness the confrontation between Apple and Facebook over who controls iPhone users’ privacy. And all across Asia digital conglomerates are battling it out. The industry’s emerging structure is a far cry from the open, diuse capitalism this newspaper supports. But an oligopoly of rivals is much better than a monopoly.

人们广泛认为, 科技行业是被垄断的，这种想法非常普遍，从投资者的策略到反垄断法背后的原则都深深体现了这一想法。但是，正如我们所解释的，这样的垄断变得越来越难以维持（参阅“商业”部分）。经过长时间的振荡，科技行业进入了一个动态阶段。在美国，数字市场正在转向寡头垄断。在这种情况下，第二和第三家公司与现有公司会进行激烈的竞争。大型科技公司正在争夺客户和数据：我们可以看到Apple和Facebook在控制iPhone用户隐私权方面的对抗。亚洲所有的数字企业集团都在与之抗争。该行业新出现的结构与本报所支持的开放、广泛资本主义相去甚远。但是，竞争对手的寡头垄断要比垄断好得多。

02

The gale of creative destruction used to blow hard in Silicon Valley. The list of rms toppled from dominance runs from Fairchild Semiconductor to HewlettPackard. Yet recently the giants have clung on: Apple and Microsoft are over 40 years old and Alphabet and Amazon over 20; even Facebook is 17 this month. What happened? Network and scale eects mean that size begets size, while data can act as a barrier to entry. Search, social media, advertising, ecommerce, streaming, ridehailing, delivery and payments all exhibit these alchemical properties to some degree. Having achieved supremacy in their chosen area, many tech rms, especially the big ones, have shown little appetite to compete directly with each other in the past decade.

The three most common searches on Microsoft Bing are Facebook, YouTube and Google. Does anyone remember Amazon’s Fire Phone?

创新曾经疯狂席卷硅谷。从主导地位跌落的公司包括飞兆半导体和惠普等。然而，最近，巨头们紧紧抓住了这一点：苹果和微软已经成立40多年了，Alphabet和亚马逊已经成立超过20年了；甚至脸书也在这个月迎来了17岁生日。究竟发生了什么？网络和规模效应意味着规模效应会引发更大的规模效应，然而数据可能会提高人们的准入门槛。搜索引擎、社交媒体、广告、电子商务，流媒体、叫车服务、运输和付款都在某种程度上展现了这种特性。在自己选择的领域中占据了上风之后，许多技术公司，尤其是大型技术公司，在过去十年中没有直接表现出相互竞争的欲望。

在Microsoft Bing上最常见的三个搜索是Facebook、YouTube和Google。还有人会记得亚马逊的Fire Phone吗？

03

At rst glance nothing has changed. Tech rms enjoyed a lucrative 2020 and investors are betting more is to come. The $7.6trn market value of America’s ve giants implies their sales will double in the next decade. Yet if you look more closely, a shift is under way. The incumbents are not getting smaller—their weightedaverage market share is stable, at about 35% across each of 11 American tech subsectors. But the share of second and third rms has risen from 18% to 26% since 2015. This reects two deeper trends.

乍的一看，什么都没有改变。科技公司在2020年利润丰厚，且投资者们押注未来还会有更多收益。美国的五个科技巨头的市值达到7.6万亿美元，这意味着他们的销售额将在未来十年内翻番。但是，如果您仔细观察，某种变化正在发生。市场上的各种公司并没有缩减，他们的加权平均市场份额是稳定的，在11个美国科技子行业中，每个市场的份额约为35％。但是自2015年以来，第二和第三家公司的份额已从18％上升到26％。这反映了两个更深层次的趋势。

04

First, big tech rms are diversifying as their core products mature, new technological opportunities emerge and regulatory threats mount in America, Europe and China. The rms have talked about this for years, but now it is happening. The share of the ve American giants’ revenues that overlaps with the others has risen from 22% to 38% since 2015. Microsoft and Alphabet are taking on Amazon in the cloud. Amazon is, in turn, the rising force in digital advertising.

The second trend, accounting for a third of the shift in market share, is that outsiders have momentum. From the ranks of the corporate establishment, Disney, aged 98, has acquired 116m new streaming customers in 18 months, while Walmart, aged 58, booked $38bn in online sales last year. Independent tech rms such as Shopify in ecommerce and PayPal have broken through thanks to the digital surge caused by the pandemic, and are generating enough prots to be selfsustaining.

第一种趋势是，大的科技公司正在走向多元化，因为这些公司的核心产品已趋于成熟，并且新科技所带来的机会涌现，同时美、欧、中的政策也对科技公司带来一定的威胁。这些公司多年来一直在谈论这些问题，但是现在这些问题正在产生。自2015年以来，五家美国巨头的收入份额与其他领域重叠，已从22％增至38％。微软和Alphabet在云计算中取代了亚马逊。反过来，亚马逊是数字广告领域的新兴力量。

第二种趋势（占市场份额变化的三分之一）是其他行业的从业者在这个领域发展势头强劲。从企业机构的排名来看，拥有98年历史的迪士尼在18个月内获得了1.16亿新流媒体客户，而拥有58年历史的沃尔玛（Walmart）去年的网上销售额为380亿美元。由于疫情引起了数字浪潮，电子商务行业中的独立科技公司（如Shopify和PayPal）已经迎来大突破，并产生了足够的利润来维持自己的运营。

05

You might think that this competition is just a blip, but it has a precedent in Asia, where customers have leapfrogged ahead and the boundaries between products have blurred, leading to marketshare shifts, lower margins and innovation. China has Alibaba and Tencent and ve other contenders worth $100bn or more. India has Jio and SouthEast Asia has Grab, Gojek and Sea. All these rms think in terms of subscribers who could be persuaded to buy a uid range of services, rather than of protecting a static monopoly at all costs. They seek expansion through diversication, even if that means bumping up against rivals.

有人可能会认为这场竞争是暂时的，但类似的情况在亚洲却是有先例的。在亚洲，客户已不单单只是消费者，产品之间的界限也变得模糊，这导致市场份额转移、利润率下降以及创新产生。中国有阿里巴巴和腾讯及其他五个竞争者，其市值甚至超过1000亿美元。印度有Jio，东南亚有Grab、Gojek和Sea。所有这些公司都站在可以购买多种不同类型服务的消费者的角度去考虑问题，而不是只想着不惜一切代价去保持“静态的垄断”。他们通过多元化寻求扩张，即使这样做意味着要与竞争对手抗衡。

06

One danger is that this oligopolistic rivalry is a Potemkin contest. It has not yet disrupted the AppleAlphabet duopoly over phoneoperating systems or app stores. Although advertisers have more choice, between, say, Amazon and Facebook, those being advertised to still have no real alternative to the products of Mark Zuckerberg, Facebook’s boss. And there are too many cosy links between rms. Alphabet pays Apple up to $12bn a year to make Google the iPhone’s default search engine. Alibaba and Tencent own stakes in some of China’s new entrants.

一种危险在于，这种寡头竞争会流于表面宣传。这样的竞争尚未破坏AppleAlphabet对电话操作系统或应用程序商店的双头垄断。尽管广告商有更多选择，例如可以在亚马逊和Facebook之间做选择，但实际上并没有真正的脸书的产品的替代品。公司之间存在太多的默许的联系。如Alphabet每年向苹果支付高达120亿美元的费用，以使Google成为iPhone的默认搜索引擎。阿里巴巴和腾讯在中国的一些新进入相关领域的公司中持有一定股份。

07

This is where resurgent antitrust enforcers can make a dierence. Those Google payments are now subject to a Department of Justice lawsuit, while Apple and Google face complaints over their app stores. Europe is planning rules to get dierent rms’ products to work together and help users move their data around. China has a new list of “the nine do nots” for ecommerce rms, including not shutting out new contenders.

It helps that ambition is plentiful. In attracting business to its cloud platform, Alphabet is losing $6bn a year—more than Amazon has lost in its lifetime. Disney plans to have 325m subscribers by 2024. PayPal intends to have 750m users of its nancial superapp by 2025. Walmart has just bought an advertising rm. Facebook is entering ecommerce. Microsoft has considered buying two socialmedia rms, TikTok and Pinterest. Huawei in China is busy creating an alternative to the iosAndroid operatingsystem duopoly.

反垄断法的执行者们可以在这时有所作为了。那些诸如谷歌支付的业务现在受到司法部的诉讼，同时苹果和谷歌也面临对其应用程序商店的投诉。欧洲正在制定相关规定，以使不同公司的产品协同工作，并帮助用户迁移数据。中国为电子商务公司列出了新的“九个不”清单，其中包括不排除新的竞争者。

这有利于那些野心勃勃的竞争者。为了吸引商务资源流入其云平台，Alphabet每年亏损60亿美元，超过亚马逊的累计亏损。迪士尼计划到2024年拥有3.25亿订户。PayPal计划到2025年拥有7.5亿金融超级用户。沃尔玛（Walmart）刚刚购买了一家广告公司。Facebook正在进入电子商务领域。微软已经考虑购买两家社交媒体公司TikTok和Pinterest。华为在中国正忙于创造一种替代iosAndroid操作系统的双头垄断。

08

Oligopolistic competition could benet consumers in several ways. It could boost choice as more rms compete to oer an expanding range of services: 11 American rms have over 100m digital subscribers. It could raise standards as platforms dierentiate themselves by trust. That is why Apple will soon ask iPhone users if they want to opt out of Facebook’s datatracking, upending the advertising market (see Schumpeter). And it could spur innovation as rms search for new tools, such as virtual reality, to control access to the customer.

寡头竞争可以通过多种方式使消费者受益。随着更多公司竞相提供更多的服务，这会增加消费者的选择范围：11家美国公司拥有超过1亿的数字用户。平台通过信任使自己的产品差别化，这也会提高相关标准。这些就能说明为什么苹果会问iPhone用户是否要退出Facebook的数据跟踪，这种行为颠覆了广告市场（请参阅Schumpeter）。当企业寻找新工具（例如VR）来控制对客户的访问权限时，这可能会激发创新。

09

Back in 2000 few predicted that tech was destined for monopoly, then it became accepted wisdom. Today no one knows if the emerging pattern of oligopolistic rivalry will last or benet consumers. But the conditions are more promising than they have been for years. Regulators are trying to prise open closed markets, a nancial boom means that capital is abundant and a global surge in online activity has boosted demand. A more contested digital economy would be consequential—for markets, consumers and businesses alike. It is looking more likely.

早在2000年，很少有人预测到技术的垄断，而这种想法成为了人们广泛接受的常识。如今，没人知道新兴的寡头竞争模式将持续还是惠及消费者。但是，这种情况比多年来的情景更为乐观。监管者非常珍视“相对开放的”封闭市场，金融繁荣意味着资本充裕，全球在线活动的激增刺激了需求。对市场、消费者和企业而言，竞争更为激烈的数字经济将是必然的。这种经济模式将更可能成为未来的发展趋势。

经济学人一般目录大纲：

The world this week：简单梳理本周的时事Leaders：社论，对本周热点事件进行评论Briefing：简报，对一个特定热点话题深度讨论Letter：读者来信，对往期文章的评论Sections：各大洲及中美英三国的本周热点事件报道Business：商业新闻Finances and economics：财经新闻Science and technology：科技新闻Books and arts：文化书籍，书评和文化现象讨论Economic and financial indicators：商业及财经指数

Buttonwood：金融专栏Schumpeter：商业专栏Bartleby：职场专栏Bagehot：英国专栏Charlemagne：欧洲专栏Lexington：美国专栏Banyan：亚洲专栏