“免費”信息的高昂代價

In the past few weeks something we always knew to be true, but which we preferred to overlook for convenience’s sake, is proving harder to ignore. The fact is that digital services are not free, they never were and that any entity from Silicon Valley that ever claimed they could be did so only because it suited their agenda or that of someone else.

過去幾周，我們一直都知道是怎么回事、但為了省事而不去深究的某些事情，變得更難忽視了。事實是，數(shù)字服務并非免費，它們從未免費過，硅谷任何聲稱能夠提供免費數(shù)字服務的公司之所以那么說，只是因為這話符合它們或其他什么人的利益。

Think of all the free digital services you use every day without paying a penny: email, travel apps, social media, YouTube, search, Wikipedia. If you had to pay for all of them, how many would you use?

想想我們每天不花一分錢就可以使用的所有免費數(shù)字服務：電子郵件、旅行應用、社交媒體，YouTube、搜索、維基百科(Wikipedia)。如果要為所有這些服務付費，你還會使用多少?

This revelation is not the result of a crash in the share prices of companies providing free internet services. Nor is it because a plethora of app companies has run out of financing options for their lossmaking operations. It has hit us because the “fake news” scandal has led us to question whether the news and information we have been consuming online for nothing was ever being generated in our interests.

我們醒悟到這一點并非提供免費互聯(lián)網(wǎng)服務的公司股價暴跌的結果。也不是因為眾多app開發(fā)商的虧損業(yè)務的融資選擇越來越少。我們之所以醒悟過來，是因為“假新聞”丑聞使我們開始懷疑，我們在網(wǎng)上免費消費的新聞和信息，是否以符合我們利益的方式生成?

However, the outrage that has followed this realisation — with free services such as Google and Facebook being urged to censor and filter the news — misdiagnoses the situation. The right diagnosis is this: over the past 20 years we have normalised a digital economy that funds itself either by appealing to the sort of investors who will tolerate long-term cash burn if the ultimate pay-off is monopoly control or by creating business models that profit from morally ambiguous situations.

然而，這一認識帶來的憤怒——要求谷歌(Google)、Facebook等免費服務提供商審查并過濾新聞——是對現(xiàn)實的錯誤診斷。正確的診斷是：過去20年，我們已經(jīng)讓這樣一種數(shù)字經(jīng)濟正?；@種經(jīng)濟通過兩種方式募集資金：一是吸引那些愿意為最終獲得壟斷控制權而忍受長期燒錢的投資者，二是創(chuàng)建能夠獲利于道德上模糊的情況的業(yè)務模式。

Where traditional media institutions feared to tread with advertising-funded models because of a belief in editorial responsibility, balance and context, social media platforms — free from any industry codes of conduct — moved right in. The lines between editorial, advertising, entertainment and political propaganda became entirely blurred in the quest for clicks.

傳統(tǒng)媒體機構基于對采編責任、平衡與大背景的考慮，不敢隨便引入廣告贊助模式，這恰好讓不受任何行業(yè)行為準則約束的社交媒體平臺趁虛而入。為了追求點擊率，編輯、廣告、娛樂以及政治宣傳之間的界線變得完全模糊了。

The growing cyber-industrial complex has normalised this further, with cross-subsidisation models that gouge wealthier customer segments for the benefit of non-paying ones referred to euphemistically as “ecosystems”. An ecosystem, in case you do not know, is a state of mutual co-dependence between organisms, often where one organism has to submit to the other in order to achieve balance.

日益壯大的網(wǎng)絡工業(yè)復合體使這種狀況進一步常態(tài)化，它們搞出交叉補貼模式——向較富?？蛻羧后w收取較高費用，以補貼非付費客戶——還美其名曰“生態(tài)系統(tǒng)”。一個生態(tài)系統(tǒng)(如果你不知道這個)是不同有機體相互依存的一種狀態(tài)，往往其中一個有機體必須屈從于另一個，才能保持平衡。

None of this is new. The last time a country normalised a complex web of interdependencies, it was called Gosplan. Just like today’s internet economy, this Soviet system was based on the idea that a technocratic and scientific central planning process could justly punish some to the benefit of others.

這一切都并非新鮮事物。上一次一個國家讓一個復雜的相互依存網(wǎng)絡常態(tài)化，還是蘇聯(lián)國家計劃委員會(Gosplan)時代的事情。正如當下的互聯(lián)網(wǎng)經(jīng)濟一樣，蘇聯(lián)這一體制基于的理念是，某種技術官僚的、科學的中央規(guī)劃過程，可以理直氣壯地為了造福于某些人而懲罰另一些人。

And, like today’s internet economy, it normalised the false idea that scientific progress could cultivate a cornucopia of free resources with no associated costs or losses of freedom.

也像當下的互聯(lián)網(wǎng)經(jīng)濟一樣，它讓一種錯誤理念正?；杭纯茖W進步可以培養(yǎng)一種免費資源的聚寶盆，而不會有相關成本，也不會失去自由。

That fallacy ended abruptly in 1985. A spate of economic crises, consumer shortages and regional instabilities, including the re-emergence of nationalistic sentiments, revealed that the centralised, cross-subsidised economy of the Soviet Union was bankrupt and had to be reformed.

這種謬誤在1985年轟然倒塌。當時一連串經(jīng)濟危機、消費品短缺及地區(qū)不穩(wěn)定(包括再度高漲的民族主義情緒)揭示出，中央集權、交叉補貼的蘇聯(lián)經(jīng)濟模式已經(jīng)破產(chǎn)，不得不進行改革。

What followed was the era of perestroika and glasnost, meaning “restructuring” and “openness” respectively. By that point, however, it was too late to save the Soviet system. Its internal imbalances had become too large. In 1991, the USSR collapsed under the weight of its own failing economy.

隨之到來的是改革(perestroika)和開放(glasnost)的時代。然而，那時要挽救蘇聯(lián)體制已經(jīng)太晚。其內部失衡過于嚴重。1991年，蘇聯(lián)在經(jīng)濟每況愈下的重壓下解體。

Yet, in the wake of that collapse, something else happened. The removal of subsidies from those who had grown so hopelessly dependent on the system that they could not fend for themselves outside it led to a backlash. Many yearned for the return of the old system, no matter the totalitarian cost. Political freedom, it turned out, was in some cases just too costly.

但在蘇聯(lián)解體后，又出現(xiàn)了新情況。對于那些已經(jīng)無可救藥地依賴于蘇聯(lián)體制、沒有這個體制就無法養(yǎng)活自己的人，取消補貼引發(fā)了強烈抵制。許多人渴望回歸舊體制，無論極權政權的代價有多高。事實證明，有時候政治自由的代價實在太大。

Imagine what the outcome would be if the digital economy experienced a similar adjustment.

想象一下，如果數(shù)字經(jīng)濟經(jīng)歷類似的調整，會有什么樣的結局。