2020年2月22日，一个很2的年份中很2的日子。这一天的经济学人杂志，在封面文章中对美股的Big 5——谷歌、亚马逊、苹果、微软和脸书——这科技五巨头日益强大所带来的风险和问题进行了讨论，并且用到了一个词汇 – “techlash”。本周末，全球市场再次陷入波澜，对美股至关重要的big 5所带来的争议，值得关注。本所对照原文简单翻译了文章内容，供各位参考。

译者  混沌超

文中蓝字部分为原文，黑字部分为译文，下划线部分为译者注释或补充说明

Investors think the techlash is over. That judgment is premature.

投资者认为techlash已经结束。这个判断为时过早。

techlash: 即technology和backlash的混成词，2018年被纳入牛津辞典年度词汇，翻译为“技术后冲”，是对大型科技公司日益增长的力量和影响力的强烈又广泛的负面反应，表达了对大型科技巨头公司的批评与抵制。

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 andactivists fret about the right to privacy, the shares of the five biggestAmerican 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, ishard to get your head round: it is roughly equivalent to Germany’s entirestockmarket. Four of the five—Alphabet, Amazon, Apple and Microsoft—are eachnow worth over $1trn. (Facebook is worth a mere $620bn.) For all the talk of atechlash, fund managers in Boston, London and Singapore have shrugged and movedon. Their calculus is that nothing can stop these firms, which are destined toearn untold riches.

2018年，硅谷的词典中出现了一个新词：“技术后冲”，即消费者和监管机构对科技巨头公司的抵制所带来的风险。如今，这种威胁似乎没有意义。尽管监管机构研讨了新规则，激进主义者亦表达了对隐私的担忧，但科技五巨头的股价仍然在过去的12个月中上涨了52％，令人瞠目结舌。这几家公司的总市值增长了将近2万亿美金。2万亿美金是什么概念呢？大致相当于德国整个股市的市值。五家公司中的四家，也就是谷歌（母公司）、亚马逊、苹果和微软，每一家市值都超过1万亿美金（FB脸书的市值只到6200亿美金）。尽管一直在谈论techlash，但波士顿、伦敦和新加坡的基金管理人却对此不屑一顾，继续勇往直前。他们认为，没有什么能够阻挡这些注定要赚取不菲财富的公司。

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&p 500 index ofAmerican shares. The last time the market was so concentrated was 20 years ago,before a crash that triggered a widespread downturn. The other, oppositeconcern is that investors may be right. The big tech firms’ supersizedvaluations suggest their profits will double or so in the next decade, causingfar greater economic tremors in rich countries and an alarming concentration ofeconomic and political power.

科技巨头股价的飙升引发了两个担忧。一是，科技股投资者是否引发了投机泡沫。这五家公司的市值达到5.6万亿美金，几乎占了标准普尔500指数美国股票价值的五分之一。市场上一次（市值）如此集中是出现在20年前，那一次随后便引发了股市的崩盘（说的是2000年的互联网泡沫）。另一个担忧则相反，即担忧这些投资者可能是正确的。大型高科技公司过高的估值，恰恰表明了他们的利润将在未来十年内翻番，从而在富裕国家引起更大的经济震荡，并造成经济和政治影响力惊人的集中。

The question of a bubble is a reasonable one. Tech cyclesare 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 abust.

关于泡沫的质疑是合理的。科技周期本就是现代经济不可或缺的一部分。例如1980年代就出现了半导体热潮，随后是1990年代的计算机和互联网。每个周期都以泡沫破裂告终。

Today’s upswing got going in 2007 with the launch of theiPhone. By 2018 it, too, seemed to be showing its age. Sales of smartphoneswere stagnating. Data scandals at Facebook crystallised anger about the techgiants’ flippant approach to privacy. Global antitrust regulators were on thealert. And the loss-making antics of flaky tech “unicorns”, such as Uber andWeWork, evoked the kind of speculative froth often seen at the tail end of along boom.

今天的上涨可以回溯到2007年，也就是iPhone发布的年代。到了2018年，智能手机的销售停滞不前，显现疲态。FB脸书的数据丑闻，引发了人们对科技巨头在处理隐私问题时的轻率所感到的愤怒。全球的反垄断监管机构紧盯其后。同时，像Uber和WeWork这类所谓的高科技“独角兽”的亏损，都让人不禁联想起长繁荣周期末端时常出现的投机泡沫。

In fact, at least for the biggest tech giants, today’svaluations are built on more solid foundations. Together, the five biggestfirms have cranked out $178bn of cashflow after investment in the past 12months (see Buttonwood). Their size has yet to slow their expansion: theirmedian sales growth, of 17% in the latest quarter, is still as impressive as itwas five years ago.

实际上，至少就这几家科技巨头而言，当今的估值的确是建立在更坚实的基础上的。在过去的12个月里，五家科技巨头合计扣除投资后的现金流量达到了1,780亿美元（参见Buttonwood）。在这样的体量下，其扩张速度并没有减缓：五家最近一个季度的销售数据，中位数增长达17％，仍然如五年前般惊人。

Consumers say they care about privacy but act as if theycare much more about getting stuff, and preferably without having to pay for itin cash. Since the end of 2018 the number of people us- ing 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 bigfive’s market value, a tolerable cost of doing business. And the agonies ofsome of the unicorns, and their big- gest backer, SoftBank, have onlydemonstrated how hard it is to replicate the scale and network effects of thebig five.

虽然消费者表示他们很关心隐私，但其实他们更在意的是能否用电子支付买到心仪的产品。自2018年底以来，使用FB服务（包括Instagram，Messenger和WhatsApp）的人数增加了11％，达到23亿美金。尽管监管机构已对科技公司在税收、隐私和竞争等方面的不当行为进行了惩罚，但到目前为止，他们的做法只是隔靴搔痒（原文-带着豌豆射手进行枪战）：监管所施加的惩罚和罚款总计不到五巨头市值的1％，这成本太可以接受了。而一些所谓独角兽公司及其最大的支持者软银的痛苦，又表明了想复制五巨头的规模和网络效应是有多难。

Meanwhile, the size of the opportunity is vast. As ourspecial report in this issue explains, many parts of the economy have yet todigitise. In the West only a tenth of retail sales are online, and perhaps afifth of computing workloads sit in the cloud with the likes of Amazon andMicrosoft. Big tech operates globally, giving it more space to expand,especially in emerging economies where spending on digital technology is stillrelatively low.

与此同时，机会还是巨大的。正如我们在本期杂志特别报告中所解释的那样，许多经济领域尚未实现数字化。在西方世界，只有十分之一的零售业实现了在线销售，大概只有五分之一的计算工作交给了亚马逊和微软等公司的云服务。放眼全球，科技巨头还有更大的扩张空间，尤其是在新兴经济体中，这些国家在数字技术方面的支出仍然相对较低。

The trouble is that if you think that tech firms will getmuch 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.

问题在于，如果您认为科技公司将会越来越大，并向更多行业（从医疗保健到农业）多元化发展，那么可以合理推测得出，对它们的抵制不会消失，而是会更大。

As big tech’s scope expands, more non-tech firms will findtheir profits dented and more workers will see their livelihoods disrupted,creating angry constituencies. One crude measure of scale is to look at globalprofits relative to American gdp. By this yardstick, Apple, which is expandinginto services, is already roughly as big as Standard Oil and us Steel were in1910, at the height of their powers. Alphabet, Amazon and Microsoft are set toreach the threshold within the next ten years.

随着科技巨头涉猎范围的扩大，越来越多传统企业的利润会减少，更多普通工人的生计将受到影响，从而成为愤怒的反抗者。一种粗略的规模衡量标准是用全球利润与灯塔国的GDP来比较。以此为基准，正在向服务业扩张的苹果已经达到了标准石油和美国钢铁1910年鼎盛时期的规模。而谷歌（母公司）、亚马逊和微软将在未来十年内达到临界值。

When recession strikes it will fuel new resentments. Bigtech could face a storm that few have yet paid much attention to (see Businesssection). The big five firms employ 1.2m people and are now by far the biggestinvestors in corporate America, spending almost $200bn a year. Their decisionsabout whether to squeeze suppliers, slash investment or attack weaker rivalswill prove as controversial as those of carmakers when Detroit still ruled inthe 1970s, or even of Wall Street in 2007-08. Big tech’s role in politics isalready toxic; social media and videos influence elections from Minnesota to Myanmar.

经济衰退来临时，将会激起新的怨愤。科技巨头可能会面临当下极少关注的风暴（另一个板块大意是说，年轻的科技巨头管理者没有作为领导者真正经历过经济大衰退以及收缩成本、裁员带来的失业潮等社会动荡）。这五家科技巨头总计雇用了120万名员工，每年花费近2000亿美金，是目前美国企业界最大的投资者。有朝一日，当科技巨头做出压缩供应商，消减投资亦或打击势弱的竞争对手的决策时，将会造成极大争议，一如1970年代的统治者——底特律的汽车制造商，甚至是2007-2008年的华尔街所面临的情形。科技巨头的角色也已经在政治方面产生不良影响，社交媒体和视频节目正影响着近至明尼苏达远至缅甸的选举。

All this means that, far from having peaked, anger may bein the foothills. Executives hope that slick lobbying will protect them. Buteven today, the picture outside America is not of inaction but a tumult ofregulatory experiments. China keeps its internet giants under tacit statecontrol and wants to rely less on Silicon Valley, including Apple, which isalready dealing with the covid-19 virus and other headwinds there. At least 27countries have or are considering digital taxes. India has cracked down one-commerce and online speech. The European Union (eu) wants individuals to ownand control their own data, an approach this newspaper favours, although it maytake years of innovation to create a system that is easy for consumers to useand profit from. This week the eu proposed curbs on artificial intelligence.Even in America, trustbusters may limit big tech’s ability to gobble upstartups, a strategy which has been instrumental to the success of Alphabet andFacebook in particular.

这一切意味着，怨愤可能远未达到峰值。高管层仍然寄望于通过圆滑的游说来保护自己。但即使到了今天，美国以外的地区虽不是毫无作为，却也是在监管实验下各显混乱。中国将互联网巨头置于国家的隐性管控之下，并希望减少其对硅谷、包括对苹果的依赖，而苹果已经在着手处理由于中国新冠病毒等因素带来的不利影响。至少有27个国家已经或正在考虑征收数字税。印度已在压制电子商务和在线演讲。欧盟则希望个体拥有对自己数据的所有权和控制权，这也是本报所偏爱的一种方式，尽管创建一个易于用户使用并有商业价值的系统可能需要花费数年时间进行研发。欧盟本周已经提议遏制人工智能。即使是美国，反垄断团体也可能对科技巨头吞并初创企业进行限制，而这恰恰是谷歌和FB脸书能够成功所采用的重要策略。

Just when youthought platforms were back in fashion

The $5.6trn market value of tech’s formidable five is atestament 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 byand watches placidly. Until today, big tech has been largely unscathed. The biggerit becomes, the more reason there is to doubt this can continue.

就在你认为平台模式重新开始流行时

令人敬畏的科技五巨头那高达5.6万亿美金的市值，正是这些公司作为商业领域有史以来最成功的企业的证据。但这也表明，即使整个世界停滞不前，这些科技巨头依然会变得更加强大。时至今日，科技巨头们仍毫发未损。而他们变得越大，我们就越有理由怀疑，这种情况是否还能够持续下去。

以上。