Investors think the tech lash is over. That judgment is premature
投资者认为对科技公司的批评潮已经过去。这种结论为时尚早
In 2018 a new word entered Silicon Valley’s lexicon: the “tech-lash”, or the risk of a consumer and regulatory revolt against big tech. Today that threat seems empty. Even as regulators discuss new rules and activists fret about the right to privacy, the shares of the five biggest American tech firms have been on a jaw-dropping bull run over the past 12 months, rising by 52%. The increase in the firms’ combined value, of almost $2trn, is hard to get your head round: it is roughly equivalent to Germany’s entire stock market. Four of the five—Alphabet, Amazon, Apple and Microsoft—are each now worth over $1trn. (Facebook is worth a mere $620bn.) For all the talk of a tech-lash, fund managers in Boston, London and Singapore have shrugged and moved on. Their calculus is that nothing can stop these firms, which are destined to earn untold riches.
2018年，硅谷的词典中又收录了一个新单词：“技术后冲”，即监管者和消费者抵制大科技公司引发的风险。如今看来这种抵制收效甚微。即便在监管者不断讨论新的法规和（抵抗科技公司的）积极份子表达对隐私权担忧的同时，过去的十二个月内，美国最大的五家科技公司的股价如火箭升空般上涨了52%。这五家公司总市值增加了近2万亿美元，如果你对这个数字没有一个直观概念的话：2万亿美元相当于德国股票市场的总市值。五大科技巨头的四家：谷歌、亚马逊、苹果和微软市值都超过了1万亿美元（脸书的市值只有6200亿美元）。来自波士顿、伦敦和新加坡的基金经理们对于那些针对大型科技公司的批评表示不屑一顾，继续加码投资科技公司。基金经理们认为没有什么可以阻挡注定赚取巨额财富的科技公司
This surge in tech giants’ share prices raises two worries. One is whether investors have stoked a speculative bubble. The five firms, worth $5.6trn, make up almost a fifth of the value of the S&P500 index of American shares. The last time the market was so concentrated was 20 years ago, before a crash that triggered a widespread downturn. The other, opposite concern is that investors may be right. The big tech firms’ supersized valuations suggest their profits will double or so in the next decade, causing far greater economic tremors in rich countries and an alarming concentration of economic and political power.
科技巨头股价狂飙引发两种担忧。第一种担忧就是投资者们是否引发了投机泡沫。五大科技巨头的总市值高达5.6万亿美元，几乎是美国标普500指数市值的五分之一。上一次市值如此集中还是在20年前（的互联网泡沫），随即股市崩盘引发经济危机。另一种担忧正好相反，认为投资人也许是正确的。这些大型科技公司巨额市值恰好说明了它们在未来十年内利润会翻倍，给西方发达国家带来更大的经济震荡，同时令人担忧的是它们对经济和政治影响力也会越来越强。
The question of a bubble is a reasonable one. Tech cycles are an integral part of the modern economy. The 1980s saw a semiconductor boom. Then, in the 1990s, came pcs and the internet. Each cycle fades or ends in a bust.
现在看来投资泡沫论似乎更为合理。科技周期逃脱不了现代经济的运行规律。上世纪80年代是半导体泡沫。90年代则是电脑和互联网泡沫。每个周期都以泡沫破裂结束。
Today’s upswing got going in 2007 with the launch of the iPhone. By 2018 it, too, seemed to be showing its age. Sales of smartphones were stagnating. Data scandals at Facebook crystallized anger about the tech giants’ flippant approach to privacy. Global antitrust regulators were on the alert. And the loss-making antics of flaky tech “unicorns”, such as Uber and WeWork, evoked the kind of speculative froth often seen at the tail end of a long boom.
如今科技股上涨起源于2007年iPhone的问世。而到了2018年，智能手机的销量似乎也停滞不前。脸书的数据丑闻让人们对这些科技巨头对待用户隐私权的轻率态度感到愤怒。全球反垄断监管者对此表示警觉。类似于优步、WeWork这种一直处于亏损状态的独角兽，也常见于长期繁荣末期常出现的投机泡沫。
In fact, at least for the biggest tech giants, today’s valuations are built on more solid foundations. Together, the five biggest firms have cranked out $178bn of cashflow after investment in the past 12 months (see Buttonwood). Their size has yet to slow their expansion: their median sales growth, of 17% in the latest quarter, is still as impressive as it was five years ago.
事实上，至少如今这些科技巨头的市值还是建立于相对稳定的基础上。五大科技巨头过去12个月里扣除投资后合计现金流达到1780亿美元。庞大的体量并没有降低这些科技巨头的增长速度：五家科技巨头最近一个季度销售量的中位数达到了17%，这跟五年前一样令人震惊。
Consumers say they care about privacy but act as if they care much more about getting stuff, and preferably without having to pay for it in cash. Since the end of 2018 the number of people using Facebook’s services (including Instagram, Messenger and WhatsApp) has risen by 11%, to 2.3bn. Regulators have punished tech firms for tax, privacy and competition misconduct, but so far their efforts have been like bringing a pea-shooter to a gun fight: the fines and penalties they have imposed amount to less than 1% of the big five’s market value, a tolerable cost of doing business. And the agonies of some of the unicorns, and their biggest backer, SoftBank, have only demonstrated how hard it is to replicate the scale and network effects of the big five.
消费者们嘴上说在意隐私权，但实际上他们更愿意不花一分钱获取更多的好处。2018年末以来，脸书（包括Instagram，Messenger和WhatsApp）的用户增加了11%，达到23亿。监管者对科技巨头在税收、隐私权和不当竞争问题进行了惩罚，但这种做法就像是在射击比赛中使用玩具枪一样影响甚微，罚金甚至不到这五家科技巨头市值的1%，这些成本完全可以接受。那些独角兽和幕后金主（比如软银）的失败只能说明复制五大科技公司和网络效应并非易事。
Meanwhile, the size of the opportunity is vast. As our special report in this issue explains, many parts of the economy have yet to digitize. In the West only a tenth of retail sales are online, and perhaps a fifth of computing workloads sit in the cloud with the likes of Amazon and Microsoft. Big tech operates globally, giving it more space to expand, especially in emerging economies where spending on digital technology is still relatively low.
与此同时，机会仍然巨大。正如我们本期特别报告中提过的，经济数字化大有可为。发达国家只有十分之一的零售业实现了线上化，可能五分之一的计算量放在了诸如亚马逊和微软的云端服务器。科技巨头们全球化运营，有大量市场可以拓展，特别是那些数字化科技程度比较低的新兴国家。
The trouble is that if you think that tech firms will get much bigger and diversify into more industries, from health care to agriculture, it is logical to assume that the backlash against them will not fade away but, eventually, get bigger.
现在问题在于，如果你相信科技公司会发展的越来越大，多元化到很多行业（从医疗健康到农业），我们也可以很合理的推断出，人们反对科技公司的浪潮不会最终消失，反而会越演越烈。
As big tech’s scope expands, more non-tech firms will find their profits dented and more workers will see their livelihoods disrupted, creating angry constituencies. One crude measure of scale is to look at global profits relative to American GDP. By this yardstick, Apple, which is expanding into services, is already roughly as big as Standard Oil and us Steel were in 1910, at the height of their powers. Alphabet, Amazon and Microsoft are set to reach the threshold within the next ten years.
随着科技公司版图的扩张，越来越多的非科技公司将会发现可赚取的利润越来越少，工人们发现他们的生活水平因此降低，相应的也会产生愤怒。一种粗略的计量方法就是把全球利润和美国GDP关联。以此为基准，还在服务领域扩张的苹果差不多取得了标准石油和美国钢铁在1910年的地位。而谷歌、亚马逊和微软也将在十年内迈入这个门槛（如今苹果取得的地位）。
When recession strikes it will fuel new resentments. Big tech could face a storm that few have yet paid much attention to (see Business section). The big five firms employ 1.2m people and are now by far the biggest investors in corporate America, spending almost $200bn a year. Their decisions about whether to squeeze suppliers, slash investment or attack weaker rivals will prove as controversial as those of carmakers when Detroit still ruled in the 1970s, or even of Wall Street in 2007-08. Big tech’s role in politics is already toxic; social media and videos influence elections from Minnesota to Myanmar.
当经济衰退到来，会引发新的愤怒。大型科技公司将会面临一场从未有过的风暴。五大巨头有120万雇员，每年在投资领域花费近2000亿美元，也是美国最大的公司投资者。他们是否剥削供应商们、缩减投资甚至攻击弱势竞争对手的决定都会如上世纪70年代的底特律的汽车制造商，或者2007年-2008年华尔街公司一样引发争议。科技巨头们在政治上的负面影响已经显现。社交媒体和视频影响者从明尼苏达州到缅甸的全球选举活动，。
All this means that, far from having peaked, anger may be in the foothills. Executives hope that slick lobbying will protect them. But even today, the picture outside America is not of inaction but a tumult of regulatory experiments. China keeps its internet giants under tacit state control and wants to rely less on Silicon Valley, including Apple, which is already dealing with the covid-19 virus and other headwinds there. At least 27 countries have or are considering digital taxes. India has cracked down on e-commerce and online speech. The European Union (EU) wants individuals to own and control their own data, an approach this newspaper favors, although it may take years of innovation to create a system that is easy for consumers to use and profit from. This week the EU proposed curbs on artificial intelligence. Even in America, trustbusters may limit big tech’s ability to gobble up startups, a strategy which has been instrumental to the success of Alphabet and Facebook in particular.
上述一切意味着对科技巨头的愤怒远未达到顶峰。科技巨头的高管们仍寄希望于高超的游说可以起到保护作用。如今，美国之外的全球各国并非无所作为，但仍各自为政。全球至少有27个国家已经或正在考虑征收数字税。印度加强了对电子商务和网络言论的管理。欧盟致力于推进个人对私人数据的权属和支配权，本报支持这种做法，但是建立易于消费者使用且商业化的系统仍需多年不断地创新才能实现。本周欧盟将会提议限制使用人工智能。即便在美国，反垄断检察官也可能限制大型科技公司随意吞并初创公司，这种并购策略对谷歌和脸书的成功起到了至关重要的作用。
Just when you thought platforms were back in fashion
当你以为厚底鞋又开始流行时
The $5.6trn market value of tech’s formidable five is a testament to some of the most commercially successful companies ever created. But it also assumes that they will get a lot bigger even as the world stands by and watches placidly. Until today, big tech has been largely unscathed. The bigger it becomes, the more reason there is to doubt this can continue.
五大科技巨头高达5.6万亿美元的市值是它们作为史上最成功公司的证明。这也说明，如果全球都对科技巨头们无所限制，它们的规模会越来越大。直到今天，科技巨头们基本上毫发无损。它们发展的越大，我们就越有理由怀疑这种情况能否持续下去。