One would not normally draw a connection from a company like Largan Precision (TPE:3008), a small Taiwanese component supplier, to the publishing industry. But it was a very insightful observation from another Taiwanese company’s CEO – Acer founder Stan Shih – about what he called the “Smiling Curve” that created the analogy in my mind. From Wikipedia:
通常不会将像大立光(TPE:3008)这样的小型台湾零部件供应商与出版业联系起来。但另一位台湾公司的 CEO——宏碁创始人施振荣——关于他所称的“微笑曲线”的非常有洞察力的观察，在我脑海中创造了这种类比。来自维基百科：

A smiling curve is an illustration of value-adding potentials of different components of the value chain in an IT-related manufacturing industry…According to Shih’s observation, in the personal computer industry, both ends of the value chain command higher values added to the product than the middle part of the value chain. If this phenomenon is presented in a graph with a Y-axis for value-added and an X-axis for value chain (stage of production), the resulting curve appears like a “smile”.
微笑曲线是信息技术相关制造行业中不同价值链组件增值潜力的图示……根据施振荣的观察，在个人计算机行业中，价值链的两端比中间部分为产品增加了更高的价值。如果将这一现象用图表表示，Y 轴表示增值，X 轴表示价值链（生产阶段），所得的曲线看起来像一个“微笑”。

What makes this observation particularly ironic is that Acer is the epitomical company at the bottom of the curve. They put PCs together, but it was the critical component makers like Intel and Windows that captured most of the value on the left, and systems integrators and value-added resellers like IBM or Accenture that captured the rest of the value on the right. Acer and its merry band of 8 OEMs
使这一观察尤为讽刺的是，宏碁是曲线底部的典型公司。他们组装 PC，但像英特尔和 Windows 这样的关键组件制造商捕获了左侧的大部分价值，而像 IBM 或埃森哲这样的系统集成商和增值经销商则捕获了右侧的其余价值。宏碁及其 8 家 OEM 合作伙伴

¹ competed themselves to single digit margins and ultimately stagnant growth; there simply isn’t any money in the undifferentiated middle.
竞争至个位数的利润率，最终导致增长停滞；在同质化的中间地带根本赚不到钱。

Fortunately for Acer, their smartphone efforts have largely failed, so they are being spared the same cycle in mobile: Nokia is gone, Sony is bleeding money, and even mighty Samsung is getting hammered (and is in fact retreating to their component business (members-only)). We all know about how Apple and Google are benefitting, as well as other services like Facebook or WeChat, but life is also good on the left side of the curve, and that is where Largan Precision comes in.
对 Acer 来说幸运的是，他们的智能手机努力在很大程度上失败了，因此他们在移动领域避免了同样的循环：Nokia 已经消失，Sony 在亏损，甚至强大的 Samsung 也受到了打击（实际上正在回归到他们的组件业务（仅限会员））。我们都知道 Apple 和 Google 正在从中受益，以及其他服务如 Facebook 或 WeChat，但在曲线的左侧生活也很好，而 Largan Precision 就在这里发挥作用。

While the iPhone got less attention than usual at its launch event (due to the Apple Watch), by far the greatest amount of time was spent on its camera. And for good reason: review after review has lauded the iPhone 6 camera as possibly the best phone camera ever. It turns out, though, that there are only a couple of companies in the world that are capable of producing such a camera, and Largan Precision is one of them.
虽然 iPhone 在发布活动上获得的关注比以往少（因为 Apple Watch），但大部分时间都花在了它的摄像头上。而且确实有理由：一次又一次的评测都称赞 iPhone 6 的摄像头可能是有史以来最好的手机摄像头。然而，事实证明，世界上只有少数几家公司能够生产这样的摄像头，而大立光电就是其中之一。

² That is why they provide the camera for the iPhone 6 (as they have for several models now) and that is why their stock performance looks like this:
这就是为什么他们为 iPhone 6 提供摄像头（就像他们为几款机型所做的那样），这也是为什么他们的股票表现如下所示：

True, their $9.6 billion market cap barely registers when compared to Apple’s $623.6 billion number,
确实，他们的 96 亿美元市值与苹果的 6236 亿美元相比几乎不值一提，

³ but when you consider that Largan Precision is a relatively tiny company that’s pretty darn impressive, and I can assure you the founders are living much more comfortably than all but the most senior Apple managers. Moreover, it’s not that far off from Foxconn, who actually builds the iPhone; their market cap is only 5x greater than the maker of a single component.
但当你考虑到大立光电是一家相对较小的公司，这确实相当令人印象深刻，我可以向你保证，创始人的生活比除了苹果最高层管理人员之外的所有人都要舒适得多。此外，它与实际上制造 iPhone 的富士康的距离并不那么远；他们的市值仅比单一组件制造商高出 5 倍。

There simply isn’t that much money in the middle.
中间并没有那么多钱。

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I was reminded of the smiling curve while reading this excellent piece by David Carr in the New York Times about Facebook and publishers:
在阅读大卫·卡尔在纽约时报上关于 Facebook 和出版商的这篇优秀文章时，我想起了微笑曲线：

For traditional publishers, the home page may soon become akin to the print edition — nice to have, but not the primary attraction. In the last few months, more than half the visitors to The New York Times have come via mobile — the figure increases with each passing month — and that percentage is higher for many other publishers.
对于传统出版商来说，首页可能很快就会变得像印刷版一样——有固然好，但不再是主要吸引力。在过去的几个月里，超过一半的《纽约时报》访客是通过移动设备访问的——这一比例每个月都在增加——对于许多其他出版商来说，这一比例更高。

Enter Facebook’s popular mobile app, which has captured greater amounts of time and, more remarkably, managed to fit a business model onto the small screen by providing extremely relevant advertising…the company has become the No. 1 source of traffic for many digital publishers. Yes, search from Google still creates inbound interest, and Twitter can spark attention, especially among media types, but when it comes to sheer tonnage of eyeballs, nothing rivals Facebook.
进入 Facebook 的热门移动应用，它不仅占据了用户大量的时间，更令人惊讶的是，它成功地在小屏幕上构建了商业模式，通过提供极其相关的广告……该公司已成为许多数字出版商的头号流量来源。是的，谷歌的搜索仍然能创造入站兴趣，推特也能引起关注，尤其是在媒体圈内，但就纯粹的用户数量而言，没有任何平台能与 Facebook 匹敌。

“The traffic they send is astounding and it’s been great that they have made an effort to reach out and boost quality content,” said one digital publishing executive, who declined to be identified so as not to ruffle the feathers of the golden goose. “But all any of us are talking about is when the other shoe might drop.”
“他们带来的流量令人震惊，他们努力接触并提升优质内容，这真是太好了，”一位不愿透露姓名的数字出版业高管表示，他不想惹恼这只下金蛋的鹅。“但我们所有人现在都在谈论的是，另一只鞋子什么时候会掉下来。”

Here’s the thing: the shoe has in many respects already dropped. When people follow a link on Facebook (or Google or Twitter or even in an email), the page view that results is not generated because the viewer has any particular affinity for the publication that is hosting the link, and it is uncertain at best whether or not their affinity will increase once they’ve read the article. If anything, the reader is likely to ascribe any positive feelings to the author, perhaps taking a peek at their archives or Twitter feed.
事情是这样的：在很多方面，事情已经发生了。当人们在 Facebook（或 Google、Twitter，甚至在电子邮件中）点击一个链接时，由此产生的页面浏览量并不是因为观众对托管该链接的出版物有任何特别的偏好，而且他们阅读文章后偏好是否会增加也很难说。如果有的话，读者可能会将任何积极的感觉归功于作者，也许会查看一下他们的存档或 Twitter 动态。

Over time, as this cycle repeats itself and as people grow increasingly accustomed to getting most of their “news” from Facebook (or Google or Twitter), value moves to the ends, just like it did in the IT manufacturing industry or smartphone industry:
随着时间的推移，随着这一循环的不断重复，以及人们越来越习惯于从 Facebook（或 Google 或 Twitter）获取大部分“新闻”，价值向两端转移，就像在 IT 制造行业或智能手机行业中发生的那样：

On the right you have the content aggregators, names everyone is familiar with: Google ($369.7 billion), Facebook ($209.0 billion), Twitter ($26.4 billion), Pinterest (private). They are worth by far the most of anyone in this discussion.
右边是内容聚合商，这些名字大家耳熟能详：谷歌（3697 亿美元），脸书（2090 亿美元），推特（264 亿美元），Pinterest（私有）。它们在这次讨论中的价值远超其他任何一方。

Traditional publishers, meanwhile, are stuck in the middle. The New York Times, the most august publisher of all, is worth a mere $2.03 billion.
传统出版商则陷入了困境。最权威的出版商《纽约时报》的价值仅为 20.3 亿美元。

⁴ Gannett Company, the largest publisher in the United States, is worth $7.14 billion, but the vast majority of that value lies in their broadcast and digital advertising holdings; most of the newspapers are worthless. I recounted the problem for newspapers in Economic Power in the Age of Abundance:
美国最大的出版商甘尼特公司价值 71.4 亿美元，但其大部分价值在于其广播和数字广告业务；大多数报纸本身几乎毫无价值。我在丰裕时代的经济权力中讲述了报纸的问题：

One of the great paradoxes for newspapers today is that their financial prospects are inversely correlated to their addressable market. Even as advertising revenues have fallen off a cliff – adjusted for inflation, ad revenues are at the same level as the 1950s – newspapers are able to reach audiences not just in their hometowns but literally all over the world.
当今报纸面临的一个巨大悖论是，它们的财务前景与其可触及的市场成反比。即使广告收入已经大幅下降——经通货膨胀调整后，广告收入已降至 1950 年代的水平——报纸不仅能够触及到其所在城市的人群，而且可以触及到全世界的读者。

The problem for publishers, though, is that the free distribution provided by the Internet is not an exclusive. It’s available to every other newspaper as well. Moreover, it’s also available to publishers of any type, even bloggers like myself.
然而，对于出版商来说，问题在于互联网提供的免费分发并不是独家的。其他每家报纸也可以使用。此外，任何类型的出版商，甚至像我这样的博主也可以使用。

In short, publishers (all of them, not just newspapers) don’t really have an exclusive on anything anymore. They are Acer, offering the same PC as the next guy, and watching as the lion’s share of the value goes to the folks who are actually putting the content in front of readers.
简而言之，出版商（不仅仅是报纸）不再拥有任何独家内容。他们就像宏碁一样，提供与其他公司相同的 PC，而大部分的价值却流向了那些真正将内容呈现给读者的人。

That Stratechery article, by the way, was about how German publishers were taking Google to court to demand compensation for article snippets that appeared on Google News. Instead Google simply removed the snippets, which resulted in such a drop in traffic that the publishers this week came crawling back asking Google to re-add the snippets, no compensation required. The general takeaway is that Google proved it was adding value to the publishers, but I have a different angle: the publisher’s demonstrated that they provide no value to their writers.
顺便说一下，那篇 Stratechery 的文章是关于德国出版商将谷歌告上法庭，要求为出现在谷歌新闻上的文章摘要支付赔偿。相反，谷歌只是删除了这些摘要，导致流量大幅下降，以至于出版商本周又回来请求谷歌重新添加摘要，不再要求赔偿。一般认为，谷歌证明了它为出版商增加了价值，但我有一个不同的角度：出版商证明了他们对作者没有价值。

See, Largan Precision doesn’t really care if their camera phone modules end up in iPhones or Galaxys or Lumias, or if they’re physically integrated by Foxconn or Quanta or Compal. They survive – and survive quite profitably – based solely on their ability to manufacture the best miniature cameras in the world. I remain convinced that the most successful writers and publications will pursue a similar strategy: do what they do best and accrue outsized value relative to publishers that are rapidly shifting from platform to obstacle.
看看，Largan Precision 并不真正关心他们的手机相机模块最终会出现在 iPhone、Galaxy 还是 Lumia 中，也不关心它们是由 Foxconn、Quanta 还是 Compal 实物集成的。他们依靠制造世界上最好的微型相机的能力生存下来——而且生存得相当有利润。我仍然相信，最成功的作家和出版物将追求类似的策略：做他们最擅长的事情，并相对于那些迅速从平台转变为障碍的出版商积累不成比例的价值。

This trend isn’t limited to publishing, either. Last week HBO announced that it was finally going direct to customers; while I think declarations that this decision will lead to cord-cutting are massively overstated, it is certainly a devaluing of the cable middle person. You can also view AT&T’s decision to lock the Apple SIM to their network in a similar light: they are trying to stave off their inevitable future as a dumb pipe between valuable content and valuable devices. Apple Pay will, in the long run, have a similar effect on banks (which is one reason it’s so fascinating to see banks embrace it while some merchants – who will benefit from more and faster transaction – be opposed).
这一趋势并不仅限于出版业。上周，HBO 宣布它终于将直接面向消费者；虽然我认为这种决定将导致取消有线电视订阅的说法是大大夸大了，但确实是有线电视中介的价值在下降。你也可以从类似的角度看待 AT&T 决定将 Apple SIM 锁定在其网络上：他们试图阻止自己不可避免地成为有价值的内容和有价值的设备之间的“哑管道”。从长远来看，Apple Pay 对银行也会有类似的影响（这也是为什么看到银行拥抱它而一些商家——他们将从更多更快的交易中受益——却反对它，如此有趣的原因之一）。

All of this is because of the Internet: by removing friction it removes the need for folks in the middle, and the result is that value will flow to the edges. In the case of publishing that is aggregators on one side, and focused, responsive, and differentiated
所有这一切都是因为互联网：通过消除摩擦，它消除了对中间人的需求，结果是价值将流向边缘。在出版的情况下，一方面是聚合者，另一方面是专注、响应迅速且具有差异化的

⁵ writers and publications on the other.
作家和其他出版物。

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1. HP, Dell, Acer, Asus, Sony, Toshiba, Lenovo and Samsung are the Big 8 Windows OEMs. Well, were. Sony has left, and Samsung has a foot out the door ↩

2. For what it’s worth, Largan Precision is yet another company suing Samsung, as well as fellow Apple supplier Genius Electronic Optical Co., for patent infringement ↩

3. All numbers as of October 28, 2014 ↩

4. Which, to the Times’ credit, is more than double their nadir in 2012 ↩

5. My canonical examples: focused – Daring Fireball, responsive – BuzzFeed, differentiated – Vox ↩