評(píng)論
打印
Finance & economics
財(cái)經(jīng)版塊
iPhone vs Android
蘋(píng)果vs安卓
College blues
大學(xué)生的藍(lán)色憂郁
Putting a price on Apple's text message bubbles.
給蘋(píng)果的短信氣泡標(biāo)價(jià)。
What is the price of cool?
變酷的價(jià)格是多少？
About $31 a month, according to new research by Leonardo Bursztyn of the University of Chicago and co-authors.
根據(jù)芝加哥大學(xué)萊昂納多·伯斯茲坦及其合著者的最新研究，價(jià)格約為每月31美元。
That is how much college students had to be paid to have their iPhone messages appear to others in a (lame) green rather than a (fashionable) blue bubble for four weeks.
要讓大學(xué)生們?cè)谒膫€(gè)星期內(nèi)，讓自己的iPhone短信在別人的手機(jī)上顯示為（老土的）綠色氣泡而非（時(shí)尚的）藍(lán)色氣泡，就需要付給他們這么多錢(qián)。
Introduced to indicate that a message has been sent by services other than Apple’s iMessage, the green bubble has become a marker for those either insufficiently wealthy to afford an iPhone or insufficiently aware of the stigma stemming from their preference for Android, another operating system.
綠色氣泡的引入原本是為了顯示該短信并非通過(guò)蘋(píng)果的iMessage發(fā)送，如今卻成了兩種人的標(biāo)識(shí)：要么是買(mǎi)不起蘋(píng)果手機(jī)，要么是意識(shí)不到自己偏好安卓（另一種操作系統(tǒng)）會(huì)招來(lái)羞恥。
Better avoided, unless there is a reward.
最好避開(kāi)安卓，除非有獎(jiǎng)勵(lì)。
The researchers offered American students a choice of participating in experiments with different conditions.
研究人員讓美國(guó)學(xué)生選擇在不同條件下參與實(shí)驗(yàn)。
In the control, students simply had to upload screenshots and receive a text message, which set a baseline for how much they valued their privacy and avoiding hassle.
在控制組中，學(xué)生只需上傳截圖并接收一條短信，這是他們重視隱私和避免麻煩的基準(zhǔn)程度。
Participants in the three other groups were paid to deactivate certain features on their phone: the blue bubbles; iMessage, which provides a few services in addition to the colour; and the camera.
其他三組參與者被有償要求停用手機(jī)的某些功能：藍(lán)色氣泡、iMessage（除顏色外還提供幾項(xiàng)服務(wù)）、相機(jī)。
On average, students required $18 to participate in the control group, and $49, $69 and $86, respectively, in the three other groups.
平均而言，學(xué)生參與控制組需要獲得18美元報(bào)酬，而參與其他三個(gè)組分別需要49美元、69美元、86美元。
For the researchers, such results demonstrate Apple’s market dominance.
對(duì)研究人員來(lái)說(shuō)，這樣的結(jié)果表明了蘋(píng)果的市場(chǎng)主導(dǎo)地位。
Ideally, firms would compete to make their products as good and cheap as possible.
理想情況下，企業(yè)會(huì)競(jìng)相將產(chǎn)品做得盡可能優(yōu)質(zhì)且便宜。
The tech giant’s position allows it to take another approach: making rivals suffer.
蘋(píng)果的地位使其能夠采取另一種策略：讓競(jìng)爭(zhēng)對(duì)手吃苦頭。
Since the introduction of common network standards last year, the original justification for Android messages appearing as green has gone.
自去年引入通用網(wǎng)絡(luò)標(biāo)準(zhǔn)以來(lái)，將安卓短信顯示為綠色的原有理由已不復(fù)存在。（注：此處指蘋(píng)果系統(tǒng)也支持RCS信息，可與安卓互發(fā)信息，因此無(wú)需再將安卓短信顯示為綠色。）
Still, the company has kept the markers.
盡管如此，蘋(píng)果仍保留了這些標(biāo)記。
Documents released in an antitrust lawsuit filed against Apple by Epic Games, a gaming firm, reveal that the tech giant’s bosses saw iMessage as a way of keeping users locked in.
游戲公司“史詩(shī)游戲”對(duì)蘋(píng)果提起反壟斷訴訟的文件披露，蘋(píng)果的管理層將蘋(píng)果短信視為鎖住用戶的手段。
One possibility is that the green bubbles represent a co-ordination problem for students.
一種可能是，綠色氣泡對(duì)學(xué)生來(lái)說(shuō)代表了協(xié)調(diào)問(wèn)題。
After all, most respondents—among both Apple and Android users—told the researchers that they wanted uniformly coloured bubbles.
畢竟，大多數(shù)受訪者——包括蘋(píng)果和安卓用戶——都告訴研究人員，他們想要顏色統(tǒng)一的氣泡。
In principle, competition provides that option; there are no colour distinctions on services such as Signal or WhatsApp.
原則上，競(jìng)爭(zhēng)提供了這種選擇，在Signal或WhatsApp等應(yīng)用程序上沒(méi)有顏色區(qū)分。
The issue could be that persuading all your friends, or indeed a whole campus, to switch, and eliminate stigma, is a difficult endeavour.
問(wèn)題可能在于，說(shuō)服你所有的朋友，甚至是整個(gè)校園的人改用其他應(yīng)用程序并消除羞恥，這是一項(xiàng)艱巨的任務(wù)。
There is another possibility, however.
然而，還有另一種可能。
Maybe iPhone users enjoy the status boost too much to forgo the sought-after blue bubbles, whatever they say in surveys.
或許蘋(píng)果手機(jī)用戶太過(guò)享受這種身份提升，以至于不愿放棄令人艷羨的藍(lán)色氣泡，無(wú)論他們?cè)谡{(diào)查中如何表態(tài)。
