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The era of big-tech exceptionalism may be over
科技巨擘例外论的时代或将终结
英文部分选自经济学人20220729社论版块
Leaders | Cloudburst
倾盆大雨

The era of big-tech exceptionalism may be over
科技巨擘例外论的时代或将终结
America’s technology giants are facing unfamiliar limits to growth
美科技巨头一时难以适应发展限制
In the digital world, the laws of physics can be suspended on a programmer’s whim. Equally, that world’s corporate architects have seemed able to defy economic gravity. Since 2005 the digital share of American gdp has risen by a third, to 10%. America’s tech oligopoly—Meta, Alphabet, Amazon, Microsoft and Apple (maama, if you will)—has outpaced even that breakneck growth. Collectively, maama’s revenues and profits have swelled by nearly 20% a year on average over the past decade, while America eked out nominal annual gdp growth of less than 4%. Covid-19 may have cramped physical lives, but it enriched digital ones—thereby also enriching big tech as never before.
在数字世界中,程序员的脑洞能让物理定律不再成立。同样地,数字世界似乎也能跳出经济规律之外。数字产业占美国GDP的比例自2005年以来已激增了三分之一,达到10%。而诸如MetaAlphabet、亚马逊、微软和苹果(缩写为MAMMA)的美国各大科技寡头公司的发展速度甚至还要快。MAMMA的总收入和利润在过去十年中的年均增速近两成,而美国名义GDP的增速满打满算也不到4%。新冠疫情可能确实限制了人们的物质生活,但却丰富了人们的数字生活,因此也以前所未有的方式让大型科技公司赚得盆满钵满。
注释:
1.科技巨擘(英语:Big Tech),又译作科技巨头,也被称作Tech GiantsBig FourFour HorsemenBig FiveS&P 5,是对信息技术IT)行业最大、最具主导地位的公司之合称,尤其指美国亚马逊公司苹果公司GoogleAlphabet)、FacebookMeta)及微软。这些公司不只在美国,在世界的信息技术产业也占有龙头地位。
2.Nominal GDP:名义GDPNominal GDP)也称货币GDP,是指以生产物品和劳务的当年销售价格计算的全部最终产品的市场价值 。由于相同产品的价格在不同的年份会有所不同,因此,如果用名义GDP就无法对国民收入进行历史的比较。为了使一个国家或地区不同年份的GDP具有可比性,就需要以某一年的价格水平为基准,各年的GDP都按照这一价格水平来计算。这个特定的年份就是基年,基年的价格水平就是所谓的不变价格,按基年的不变价格计算出来的各年最终产品的价值就是实际GDP
This year gravity has asserted itself once more. The tech-heavy nasdaq index is down by a quarter since January, half as much again as America’s broader stockmarket. Profitless not-so-big tech has been dragged down by anaemic revenue growth and high interest rates, which make the far-off earnings of firms like Snap look less valuable today. More surprising, despite generating piles of cash in the here and now, the giants are also feeling the tug of reality. On July 26th Alphabet reported its slowest quarterly sales growth since the bleak early months of the pandemic. Its share price rallied, though not enough to offset recent falls and only because expectations were even worse. A day later Meta said its sales fell year on year, for the first time ever.
但今年,经济规律再次应验。以科技股为主的纳斯达克指数自今年一月以来跌了四分之一,跌幅再次达美国整体股市跌幅的一半。规模不大,又不怎么赚钱的科技公司深陷收入增长乏力和高利率的旋涡,而这如今也让Snap这样的公司远期盈利在一定程度上缩水。更让人惊讶的是,尽管科技巨头如今仍在不断创造巨额现金收益,它们也感受到了现实的压力。726日,Alphabet公布了其自疫情初期的惨淡景况以来最低的季度销售额增长率。尽管其股价略有回升,但仍不足以弥补近期的低迷,况且股价回升只是因为预期其实更低。次日(727日),Meta表示其销售额首次同比下降。
America’s technology titans are suddenly having to contend with forces that have long plagued old-economy ceos: gummed-up supply chains, protectionism, worker shortages and competition. For maama, these constraints are something of a novelty. Its bosses had better get used to them.
美国的科技巨头突然间就被卷入同各种力量的斗争,这些力量,比如供应链阻塞、贸易保护主义、劳动力短缺和竞争等,长久以来困扰着传统经济中的CEO们。对MAAMA来说,这些限制可谓头一遭。不过,MAMMA的老板应该尽快适应。
One limit is geography, often forgotten in a world of seamless global supply chains and largely borderless cyberspace. In so far as the tech giants peddle physical bits and bobs rather than digital bytes, they are sharing in the pain of supply disruptions. In April, Apple (which like Amazon was due to report its results after we went to press) warned that its revenues would be $4bn-8bn lower than expected in the second quarter, chiefly because of supply-chain snags in China, where factories are locked down with unnerving severity every time a case of covid turns up. Ingenious inventory-management software has not spared Amazon—which, like conventional retailers such as Walmart, misjudged what shoppers wanted and when—from extra costs.
地理因素是一大限制。当今世界拥有无缝链接全球的供应链及几乎没有边界限制的网络空间,因而地理障碍常被忽视。但在科技巨头销售实物而非数字产品的情况下,他们也难免承受供应链中断之苦。今年四月,苹果公司(同亚马逊一样,在我们付梓后公布财报)警告称,由于新冠疫情导致供应链阻塞,二季度营收将比预期减少4080亿美元。亚马逊纵然有精妙的库存管理软件,但同沃尔玛等传统零售商一样,错判了消费者的喜好和下单时间,因而也难免要支付更多成本。
注释:
“Bits and Bobs”  is English slang for a collection of small items too numerous or varied to name individually. It originated from carpenters' tool kits containing parts for a drill, with bits used for making holes while bobs are routing or screwdriving drill attachments. Children laugh at the balls' mistakes at the end.
Barriers are being put up on the internet, too, as places from the European Union to India become more protective of their citizens’ data and of their own digital darlings. That is a worry for Alphabet, Meta and Microsoft, which, outside firewalledChina at least, face few barriers to selling their digital services.
另外,随着欧盟、印度等愈发注重保护公民数据及本地数字宠儿公司,互联网也不再畅行无阻。这让AlphabetMeta及微软深感担忧,它们原本在销售数字服务时并不会遭遇太多阻碍。
Another limit has to do with talent. Tech firms are not used to scrabbling around for the best programmers. However, having dislodged banks and consultancies as graduates’ dream employers, big tech is finding it hard to recruit. One reason is the sheer size of maama’s collective workforce, which has grown nearly seven-fold in the past ten years, to 2.2m. The bigger the payroll the harder it is to replenish, let alone expand. Big tech also faces stiffer competition from other industries, all of which these days manifest a degree of techiness minus the controversies that have sullied big tech’s reputation.
另一项是人才限制。技术公司对顶级程序员的人才抢夺战还不适应。然而,在取代银行和咨询机构成为毕业生梦寐以求的雇主之后,大型科技公司正为招聘犯难。原因之一是MAAMA整体员工数量巨大,在过去十年里,员工人数翻了近七倍,达到220万人。职工数量越大,就越难填补离职空缺,更何况是扩充员工规模了。大型科技公司同样面临着来自其他行业更激烈的竞争。这些行业现今都有一定的技术含量,且并没有出现曾让大型科技公司声誉蒙羞的争议。
The last limit is maama’s markets. As businesses such as e-commerce revert to pre-covid growth rates, the pandemic looks less like the start of an era of endless digitisation, and more like a one-off step-change. As they become commonplace, tech offerings are behaving like other staples. As Alphabet and Meta show, digital ads, once thought immune to the business cycle, may be turning as procyclical as the offline sort.
最后一个限制是MAAMA的市场。随着电商等业务恢复到新冠疫情前的增长率,这场大流行似乎并不会开启一个无限的数字化时代,而更像是一次性的巨变。科技产品的普及使得其表现和其他主要经济产品日渐趋同。正如AlphabetMeta所显示的那样,曾经被认为不受商业周期影响的数字广告,可能会变得像线下广告一样呈现非常明显的顺周期性。
Be it online ads or shopping, the cloud or smartphones, tech markets are more mature—and mature markets grow more slowly, especially when regulators are no longer ignoring them. In many areas incumbents’ fat margins are being competed down. Amazon, for example, is investing heavily in its advertising business, Alphabet’s forte; Alphabet, meanwhile, is spending billions to get a foothold in the cloud, which is Amazon’s.
无论是在线广告还是购物,云计算还是智能手机,科技市场都更加成熟——而成熟的市场增长更缓慢,尤其是在监管机构不再忽视它们的时候。在许多领域,现有企业的丰厚利润正在被竞争压低。例如,亚马逊正在大力投资其广告业务,而这是Alphabet的强项;与此同时,Alphabet也豪掷数十亿美元,企图在亚马逊的地盘——云计算领域站稳脚跟。
MAAMA mia, can you grow again?
MAAMA咪呀!你们能否再振雄风?
The giants of tech may yet rediscover their reality-distorting magic. Amazon’s $3.9bn purchase this month of One Medical, an American health-care provider, is only the latest maama effort to conquer one of the last remaining under-digitised markets big enough to move the needle for a trillion-dollar firm. They may once again conjure up an all-new market, as Apple did with the iPhone’s app economy and hopes to repeat with augmented reality. Until that happens, though, the era of big-tech exceptionalism is probably over.
尽管困难重重,但科技巨头们可能会重新获得改写现实的魔力。亚马逊本月以39亿美元收购了美国医疗保健供应商One Medical,这只是MAAMA为征服仅存的数字化程度不高的市场之一所做的最新努力,这个市场的规模足以显著影响一家市值高达万亿美元的公司。他们可能会再次创造出一个全新的市场,就像苹果在iPhone应用程序经济领域中所做的那样——而且苹果现在还希望在增强现实这一领域如法炮制。然而,在此之前,科技巨头例外主义的时代可能已宣告结束。
翻译组:
Jessie,女,翻译界林黛玉,想被人叫大佬
Yuqing,女,理想主义体验派,经济学人读者
Rex,男,集书狂魔,经学钢粉,总觉得24小时不够用
校对组:
Claire,进进退退,摇摇摆摆,探索世界ing
Francis,一笔一口,谈笑有鸿儒,往来无白丁
Lora,一只庸俗的骡,一只脱离了高级趣味的骡
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