苹果需要重新定义数字经济

当乔布斯在2007年发布第一代iPhone时，他宣布苹果“重新发明了手机”，但事实上，真正对每个人的生活产生重大影响的并不是手机本身，而是手机中的App。琳琅满目的App代表着新一代硅谷巨头，也代表着数字经济的新纪元。但同时，它催生了数据主权的问题。怎样才能让用户控制自己的数据？这是一个迫在眉睫的难题。

测试中可能遇到的词汇和知识：

envisage[ɪn'vɪzɪdʒ] vt.想象，设想

prevail[prɪ'veɪl] vi.获胜, 盛行，主导

fodder ['fɒdə(r)] n.饲料，草料

litter ['lɪtə(r)] v.乱丢垃圾，弄乱

corpse [kɔːps] n.尸体

grandiose['ɡrændiəʊs] adj.宏伟的，堂皇的

steamroller['stiːmroʊlər] n. 压路机

catalyse ['kætəˌlaɪz] v. 催化

Now Apple needs to reinvent the digital economy(728 words)

By John Thornhill

When Steve Jobs launched the iPhone in 2007 he claimed it was a revolutionary product that would change everything. Hyperbole was, of course, his second tongue. But a decade on, it could be argued that Jobs was largely right, even if not in the way he imagined.

The launch of Apple’s latest iPhone X in Cupertino last week once again highlighted what a phenomenon the smartphone has become. With more than 1bn devices sold, the iPhone probably ranks as the most profitable product in history, helping to turn Apple into the most valuable public company in the world.

But, as Brian Merchant explains in his snappy book The One Device, The Secret History of the iPhone, the smartphone has evolved in ways that Jobs did not envisage. His primary purpose was to reinvent the telephone by throwing in an iPod and a web browser. But it was the subsequent launch of the App Store that super-charged the iPhone’s growth and created a whole new branch of economic activity. The iPhone’s killer app was as a store for others’ apps.

Apple’s achievement was to put a supercomputer in everyone’s pocket and allow others to figure out how to use it. The Apollo Guidance Computer, which helped man land on the moon in 1969, contained 12,300 transistors. The iPhone 7 contains 3.3bn. In Mr Merchant’s words, this iPhone supercomputer has become the “foundational instrument of modern life”.

That app economy has spawned a new generation of Silicon Valley companies such as Uber, Instagram, Snapchat, and Airbnb and weaponised social media businesses such as Facebook. Adding in rival app ecosystems, such as Google-Android and China’s super-app communities, the AppAnnie data company estimates that consumers will download a total of 197bn apps this year, rising to 353bn by 2021.

That explosion of app usage has led to a surge of personal communication, consumer convenience, and on-demand entertainment. No longer can a teenager in possession of a smartphone ever again complain of being bored.

But this technological revolution has also come at a cost in terms of economic disruption, mass distraction and the erosion of privacy. In Europe, where citizens’ rights tend to trump consumer convenience, a different sensibility prevails. Here, US tech companies are sometimes portrayed as vampirical colonialists, sucking all the data out of European consumers, reducing them to bloodless advertising fodder.

The EU has responded by tackling some of the US tech giants on competition grounds and adopting a far-reaching General Data Privacy Regulation that comes into force next year. The European Commission has estimated that by 2020 the value of citizens’ personal data will reach €1tn, almost 8 per cent of EU gross domestic product. It is determined that this valuable resource should be utilised more responsibly.

An EU-funded report published on Monday sketches out a plan for reclaiming digital sovereignty by creating an alternative data ecosystem. The Decode (Decentralised Citizens Owned Data Ecosystem) plan describes how individual users, businesses and communities could benefit from the creation of a true sharing economy, a data commons.

Decode will test its methodology in pilot projects in Amsterdam and Barcelona in the next two years. To take one example, Decode will help the Amsterdam municipality work with the FairBnB community platform to provide short-term accommodation for visitors, reinvesting profits in local initiatives. This is a response to Airbnb, which stands accused of pushing up rents and failing to provide data about hosts who violate local laws.

It would be a wonderful thing if such projects flourished and Europe could pioneer a more plural form of data capitalism. Users around the world, including the US, would cheer them on.

But Europe’s landscape is littered with the corpses of grandiose tech projects that perished in the marketplace. Remember how France’s former president Jacques Chirac wanted to create Quaero to take on Google? Sadly, the state-backed search engine got lost somewhere along the way. In some respects, this latest Decode initiative feels like an attempt to pick up digital pennies in the path of an advancing steamroller.

What would catalyse a true transition is if a leading tech company were to help redesign the digital economy by enabling users to control their own data. What is needed is another revolutionary product that could change everything. Apple, which uses the data it amasses to build better products rather than to sell on to advertisers, seems most attuned to this philosophy. Over to you, Cupertino?

请根据你所读到的文章内容，完成以下自测题目：

1.What is Apple's most influential invention in terms of innovation economy?

A. A new generation of tech companies.

B. A super-app community.

C. A store for others’ apps.

D. A a supercomputer in everyone’s pocket.

答案(1)

2.Why do US tech giants meet with opposition in Europe?

A. Because European citizens want to control their own property instead of leaving them to US companies.

B. Because US tech companies caused the mass economic disruption in European countries.

C. Because US tech companies profit from sucking all the data out of European consumers.

D. Because citizens’ rights are highly valued in Europe, which often goes against US tech companies.

答案(2)

3.The EU plans to create an alternative data ecosystem in order to ____.

A. provide short-term accommodation for visitors.

B. increase digital sovereignty of European citizens.

C. provide data about landlords who violate local laws.

D. pioneer a more plural form of data capitalism.

答案(3)

4.The author's attitude towards the Decode Project?

A. Optimistic.

B. Critical.

C. Indifferent.

D. Cautious.

答案(4)

* * *

(1) 答案：C.A store for others’ apps.

解释：乔布斯做出的愿望是重新发明手机。然而是后来App Store的推出大幅推动了iPhone的增长，并创造出了一种全新的经济活动。

(2) 答案：D.Because citizens’ rights are highly valued in Europe, which often goes against US tech companies.

解释：在欧洲，人们把公民权利看得比用户的方便更重要，这种不同的理念占据了主流。在这里，美国科技公司常常被视作嗜血的殖民者，吸走欧洲用户的数据以喂饱广告商。

(3) 答案：B.increase digital sovereignty of European citizens.

解释：周一，一个由欧盟支持的研究报告介绍了Decode计划，该计划将创造一个替代数据生态系统来回收数据主权。

(4) 答案：D.Cautious.

解释：作者认为，Decode计划一旦成功，欧洲将会开创更多元的数据资本主义形式，全世界的用户都将因此受益。但也有一些先例预示着欧洲的宏伟科技项目可能会失败。