手痒，先贴了再说。
粗糙，请对照着看——
Priced to Sell
Is free the future?
by Malcolm Gladwell
有价而沽——免费是未来？
这是《纽约客》的一篇书评，原文这里。
At a hearing on Capitol Hill in May, James Moroney, the publisher of the Dallas Morning News, told Congress aboutnegotiations he’d just had with the online retailer Amazon. The idea was to license his newspaper’s content to the Kindle,Amazon’s new electronic reader. “They want seventy per cent of the subscription revenue,” Moroney testified. “I get thirty per cent, they get seventy per cent. On top of that, they have said we get the right to republish your intellectual property to any portable device.” The idea was that if a Kindle subscription to the Dallas Morning News cost ten dollars a month, seven dollars of that belonged to Amazon, the provider of the gadget on which the news was read, and just three dollars belonged to the newspaper, the provider of an expensive and ever-changing variety of editorial content. The people at Amazon valued the newspaper’s contribution so little, in fact, that they felt they ought then to be able to license it to anyone else they wanted. Another witness at the hearing, Arianna Huffington, of the Huffington Post, said that she thought the Kindle could provide a business model to save the beleaguered newspaper industry. Moroney disagreed. “I get thirty percent and they get the right to license my content to any portable device—not just ones made by Amazon?” He was incredulous.“That, to me, is not a model.”
5月，在国会山的一次听证会上，《达拉斯晨报》(Dallas Morning News)出版人詹姆斯·莫罗尼(James Moroney)向国会讲述了他和在线零售商亚马逊之间的谈判，即授权给亚马逊的电子阅读器kindle刊载该报内容。“他们想要收取订阅收入的 70%”，莫罗尼说，“我三他七。另外，他们还要获权在其他便携设备上出版这些知识产权归我们的内容。”也就是说，如果在kindle上订阅《达拉斯晨 报》的费用是10美元每月，其中的7美元要给新闻阅读设备提供商亚马逊，而报纸作为花费不菲、花样翻番的内容提供者，只能拿到其中的3元。亚马逊能给报纸 收入带来的增量实在有限，事实上，他们觉得自己能够拿到所有他们想要的内容刊载许可。听证会上的另一位证人，来自新闻和观察类博客Huffington Post的Arianna Huffington则认为，kindle能够提供一种商业模式来拯救四面受敌的报业。莫罗尼并不认同。“在任何便携设备上——不仅仅是亚马逊制造的—— 授权刊载我的内容，我三他七？”他对比深表怀疑，“对我而言，这绝不是什么商业模式。”
Had James Moroney read Chris Anderson’s new book, “Free: The Future of a Radical Price” (Hyperion; $26.99), Amazon’s offer might not have seemed quite so surprising. Anderson is the editor of Wired and the author of the 2006 best-seller “The Long Tail,” and “Free” is essentially an extended elaboration of Stewart Brand’s famous declaration that “information wants to be free.” The digital age, Anderson argues, is exerting an inexorable downward pressure on the prices of all things “made of ideas.” Anderson does not consider this a passing trend. Rather, he seems to think of it as an iron law: “In the digital realm you can try to keep Free at bay with laws and locks, but eventually the force of economic gravity will win.”To musicians who believe that their music is being pirated, Anderson is blunt. They should stop complaining, and capitalize on the added exposure that piracy provides by making money through touring, merchandise sales, and “yes, the sale of some of [their] music to people who still want CDs or prefer to buy their music online.” To the Dallas Morning News, he would say the same thing. Newspapers need to accept that content is never again going to be worth what they want it to be worth, and reinvent their business. “Out of the bloodbath will come a new role for professional journalists,” he predicts, and he goeson:
There may be more of them, not fewer, as the ability to participate in journalism extends beyond the credentialed halls of traditional media. But they may be paid far less, and for many it won’t be a full time job at all. Journalism as a profession will share the stage with journalism as an avocation. Meanwhile, others may use their skills to teach and organize amateurs to do a better job covering their own communities, becoming more editor/coach than writer. If so, leveraging the Free—paying people to get other people to write for non-monetary rewards—may not be the enemy of professional journalists. Instead, it may be their salvation.
如果詹姆斯·莫罗尼(James Moroney)此前有读过克里斯·安德森（Chris Anderson）的新书《免费：一种激进价格的未来》，那么他也许就不会对亚马逊的出价表现得如此惊愕。安德森是连线杂志的编辑，同时也是2006年度 畅销书《长尾》的作者，“免费”实质上是斯图尔特·布兰德（Stewart Brand）著名论断“信息想要免费”的延伸。安德森认为，数字时代正在无情地压低所有“由思想构成”的东西的价格。安德森并不认为这是一个暂时的趋势， 而更愿意把它看做是一条铁律：“在数字领域，你可以尽量用法律和其他枷锁来避免免费，但最终获胜的将是经济万有引力。”对于那些抱怨自己的音乐被侵权的音 乐家，安德森更是直言不讳。他们应该停止抱怨，并很好地把盗版带来的额外曝光度知名度作为资本加以利用，通过巡演、商品销售、以及“向那些仍然愿意购买 CD或者更倾向于在线购买音乐的人们”出售自己的音乐来赚钱。对《达拉斯晨报》，他也会做出同样的建议。报纸得接受这样的现实：内容再也不会值他们此前所 预期的价钱，必须要改变他们的商业模式。他指出，“在大屠杀之后，将会诞生一种全新的专业新闻记者角色”，他进一步解释说：随着他们已经参与新闻报道能力 远超出传统媒体所能介入的程度，专业新闻记者们的数量会越来越多，而不会减少。但是他们的收入会减少，因为对大部分人来说这根本就不是一份全职工作。将会 有更多的人把新闻业作为一种业余爱好而参与进来。同时，还有一些人或许将用他们的技能来教授并组织业余爱好者做好社区新闻报道，他们更多地是扮演了编辑/ 指导员的角色，而不是写手。因此，撬动免费——给那些发动其他人不计报酬地写作的人付钱——或许不会与专业新闻记者冲突。相反，这可能是他们的救赎。
Anderson is very good at paragraphs like this—with its reassuring arc from “bloodbath” to “salvation.” His advice is pithy, his tone uncompromising, and his subject matter perfectly timed for a moment when old-line content providers are desperate for answers. That said, it is not entirely clear what distinction is being marked between “paying people to get other people to write” and paying people to write. If you can afford to pay someone to get other people to write, why can’t you pay people to write? It would be nice to know, as well, just how a business goes about reorganizing itself around getting people to work for “non-monetary rewards.” Does he mean that the New York Times should be staffed by volunteers, like Meals on Wheels? Anderson’s reference to people who “prefer to buy their music online” carries the faint suggestion that refraining from theft should be considered a mere preference. And then there is his insistence that the relentless downward pressure on prices represents an iron law of the digital economy. Why is it a law? Free is just another price, and prices are set by individual actors, in accordance with the aggregated particulars of marketplace power. “Information wants to be free,” Anderson tells us, “in the same way that life wants to spread and water wants to run downhill.” But information can’t actually want anything, can it? Amazon wants the information in the Dallas paper to be free, because that way Amazon makes more money. Why are the self-interested motives of powerful companies being elevated to a philosophical principle? But we are getting ahead of ourselves.
从“大屠杀”到“救赎”——安德森非常擅长写这样的段落。他的建议精辟，他的语调坚定，他的主题正好卡在老生产线上的内容提供者正急切地寻找答案的 时间点上。也就是说，在“付酬给发动人写作的人”和付酬给写作者的界限还不甚明晰。如果你能够给发动人写作的人付酬的时候，为什么你不能给写作者付酬呢？ 还有，如何重组整编这一行业，让人们在没有薪金激励的情况下工作呢？这是否意味着纽约时报应该由志愿者组成，就像流动供餐车一样？【laohuang 注：Meals on Wheels，一个志愿者项目，一家教堂组织人们募捐来资金，每天在教堂内准备热餐，再由志愿者分送到因为年纪太大而不能做饭和购物的老人家中，让他们一 天能吃上一顿热饭。】安德森提及“更愿意在线购买音乐”的人们，认为优先考虑制止盗版不过是一个无力的建议。他坚持认为在数字经济中，价格下降是无情的铁 律。为什么是铁律呢？免费是另一种价格，由演员本人和市场各方主体共同设置的价格。“信息想要免费”，安德森告诉我们，“这跟生命想要延续，水想要往下流 是同样的道理。”但是，信息最终不可能想要获得每一样东西，不是么？亚马逊想要免费获得达拉斯晨报的内容，因为这会让它赚更多的钱。为什么这些强势公司的 利己主义动机被提高到了哲学的高度？这不过是因为我们正在超越自我。
Anderson’s argument begins with a technological trend. The cost of the building blocks of all electronic activity—storage,processing, and bandwidth—has fallen so far that it is now approaching zero. In 1961, Anderson says, a single transistor was ten dollars. In 1963, it was five dollars. By 1968, it was one dollar. Today, Intel will sell you two billion transistors for
eleven hundred dollars—meaning that the cost of a single transistor is now about .000055 cents.
安德森用技术发展趋势引出他的观点。建构所有电子行为的花费——存储、处理和带宽——目前已经降到接近零的地步。安德森说，一个单晶体管在1961 年卖10美元，1963年卖5美元，到了1968年，降到了1美元。而在今天，英特尔1100美元卖给你200万个晶体管——这意味着一个单晶体管的价钱 是0.00055美分。
Anderson’s second point is that when prices hit zero extraordinary things happen. Anderson describes an experiment conducted by the M.I.T. behavioral economist Dan Ariely, the author of “Predictably Irrational.” Ariely offered a group of subjects a choice between two kinds of chocolate—Hershey’s Kisses, for one cent, and Lindt truffles, for fifteen cents. Three-quarters of the subjects chose the truffles. Then he redid the experiment, reducing the price of both chocolates by one cent. The Kisses were now free. What happened? The order of preference was reversed. Sixty-nine per cent of the subjects chose the Kisses. The price difference between the two chocolates was exactly the same, but that magic word “free” has the power to create a consumer stampede. Amazon has had the same experience with its offer of free shipping for orders over twenty-five dollars. The idea is to induce you to buy a second book, if your first book comes in at less than the twenty-five-dollar threshold. And that’s exactly what it does. In France, however, the offer was mistakenly set at the equivalent of twenty cents—and consumers didn’t buy the second book. “From the consumer’s perspective, there is a huge difference between cheap and free,” Anderson writes. “Give a product away, and it can go viral. Charge a single cent for it and you’re in an
entirely different business. . . . The truth is that zero is one market and any other price is another.”
安德森的第二个观点是：当价格接近零时，就会发生非常之事。安德森描述了麻省理工行为经济学家、《可预见的无理性》（Predictably Irrational）一书作者Dan Ariely主持的一个试验。Ariely向课题小组成员提供了两种巧克力选择：1美分的好时Kisses，15美分的瑞士莲truffles。四分之三 的人选择了truffles。接着，他重做了实验，每种巧克力的价格都减去1美分。此时Kisses就等于免费了。接着发生了什么呢？大家的选择完全倒转 过来了。69%的人选择了Kisses。两种巧克力之间的价格差美编，但是神奇的“免费”具备推动消费者跑的能力。亚马逊同样具备这样的经验，向每张25 美元以上的订单免运费。这个办法是在你买的第一本书少于25美元时，诱使让你买第二本。这确实也起了作用。但是，在法国，则是提供相当于20美分的礼物， 此举实为败笔——人们也就不买第二本书了。“在消费者看来，在免费和便宜之间有着巨大的差异，”安德森写道，“免费赠送一个产品，它能够成为一种病毒式营 销。收费，哪怕只是收1美分，就变成了一个完全不同的买卖……事实上，零是一个市场，其他价格则是另一个市场。”
Since the falling costs of digital technology let you make as much stuff as you want, Anderson argues, and the magic of the word “free” creates instant demand among consumers, then Free (Anderson honors it with a capital) represents an enormous business opportunity. Companies ought to be able to make huge amounts of money “around” the thing being given away—as Google gives away its search and e-mail and makes its money on advertising.
数字技术的价格下降，给你带来了应有尽有的原材料，安德森认为，“免费”的魔力就在于，它创造了消费者的紧迫需求，免费（安德森尊之为一种资本）带来了巨大的商业机会。公司可以通过免费送出的东西创造巨大的财富——就像google的搜索和邮件功能让它在广告上大赚一样。
Anderson cautions that this philosophy of embracing the Free involves moving from a “scarcity” mind-set to an “abundance” mind-set. Giving something away means that a lot of it will be wasted. But because it costs almost nothing to make things, digitally, we can afford to be wasteful. The elaborate mechanisms we set up to monitor and judge the quality of content are, Anderson thinks, artifacts of an era of scarcity: we had to worry about how to allocate scarce resources like newsprint and shelf space and broadcast time. Not anymore. Look at YouTube, he says, the free video archive owned by Google. YouTube lets anyone post a video to its site free, and lets anyone watch a video on its site free, and it doesn’t have to pass judgment on the quality of the videos it archives. “Nobody is deciding whether a video is good enough to justify the scarce channel space it takes, because there is no scarce channel space,” he writes, and goes on: Distribution is now close enough to free to round down. Today, it costs about $0.25 to stream one hour of video to one person. Next year, it will be $0.15. A year later it will be less than a dime. Which is why YouTube’s founders decided to give it away. . . . The result is both messy and runs counter to every instinct of a television professional, but this is what abundance both requires and demands.
安德森警告说，这种拥抱免费的哲学，还伴随着“空空”大脑模式到“富足”大脑模式的转移。让某种东西免费意味着它的一些东西被浪费了。因为几乎不花 什么钱就能制造某物，从数位上来说，我们能够提供的东西就有浪费之嫌。安德森认为，我们为监控和判断内容质量而精心架构的程序，其实是匮乏时代——我们不 得不担心如何分配新闻纸、书架空间和广播时间等稀缺资源的时代——的史前文物。这一切都一去不复返了。他说，你看看You Tube，这个google旗下的免费视频网站。You Tube让任何人都可以免费上传视频到网站，让任何人都可以在它的网站上免费看视频，它不不要对网站上的视频质量做任何评判。“没有人决定一段视频是否足 够好到可以占据有限的空间，因为空间并非稀缺”，他这样写道，并进一步说：发行费用现在也接近免费。今天，一小时的视频所需流量费用大概是0.25美元。 明年，这个价钱可能是0.15美元。再下一年，可能不到0.1美元。这就是为何You Tube的创始人决定让它免费……这一决定带来的结果是混乱的，而且与职业电视的本能完全背道而驰，但是带出了旺盛的需求。
There are four strands of argument here: a technological claim (digital infrastructure is effectively Free), a psychological claim (consumers love Free), a procedural claim (Free means never having to make a judgment), and a commercial claim (the market created by the technological Free and the psychological Free can make you a lot of money). The only problem is that in the middle of laying out what he sees as the new business model of the digital age Anderson is forced to admit that one of his main case studies, YouTube, “has so far failed to make any money for Google.”
这里存在四个立基点：一是技术要求（数字架构是绝对免费的），一是心理要求（消费者爱免费），一是程序要求（免费意味着绝不做判断），还有一个是商 业要求（由免费技术和免费心理架构起来的市场能给你带来财富）。在展开论述他所预见的数字时代全新商业模式时，安德森遇到的唯一问题是，他不得不承认，他 的主要研究个案You Tube，“至今还未能给google赚钱。” (more…)
