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Forty years ago, when Janet Yellen, chairwoman of the US Federal Reserve, was an economist at Harvard University, she was interested in the film Five Easy Pieces. She noted the scene in which a diner waitress refuses to bring Jack Nicholson’s character an omelette with coffee and wheat toast because it serves omelettes with cottage fries and rolls. “I know what it comes with, but it’s not what I want,” he retorts.
40年前，现任美联储主席珍妮特•耶伦(Janet Yellen)还是哈佛大学(Harvard University)的一名经济学家时，她对电影《五只歌》很感兴趣。她注意到电影中的一个场景，餐厅女招待拒绝给杰克•尼克尔森(Jack Nicholson)饰演的角色端上煎蛋卷配咖啡和全麦面包片，因为店里供应的是煎蛋卷配农家煎土豆和面包卷。尼克尔森反驳：“我知道这个的配菜是什么，但那不是我想要的。”
The lesson that Ms Yellen and her co-author drew in a study of the economics of bundling was that it repays a restaurant to offer its customers an à la carte option alongside items on the set menu. Most people will be happy to choose from a fixed list, with lower prices, but “the à la carte menu is designed to capture consumer surplus from those gastronomes with extremely high valuations of particular dishes”.
耶伦和她的合著者进行了一项关于捆绑销售经济学的研究，结论是，如果一家餐厅在固定菜单以外提供顾客单点的选择，餐厅能得到相应的回报。绝大多数人乐意通过比较便宜的固定菜单点菜，但“单点菜单是为了捕捉那些对某些菜品有极高评价的美食家消费者”。
For Nicholson’s restless young oil-rig worker in Five Easy Pieces, read a generation of rebellious millennials who have been angry at being forced to buy a cable subscription to watch Game of Thrones and True Detective on the HBO network. All they want are those shows, they protest, not the entire package.
尼克尔森在《五支歌》中饰演的不安分的年轻油田钻井工，折射出富有反叛精神的千禧年一代(millennial)。为了收看美国家庭电影频道(HBO)的节目《权力的游戏》(Game of Thrones)和《真探》(True Detective)，他们被迫订阅有线电视服务，为此他们感到愤怒。他们抗议称，他们只想看这些节目，而不是打包的全部频道。
HBO gave in last week, announcing that it will offer a separate service for broadband users who have “cut the cord” to cable television or did not subscribe in the first place. It told investors it will go direct to the 10m Americans who use a cable or digital line for broadband rather than paying $100 a month for a multichannel subscription including HBO or Showtime.
HBO近期做出了让步，宣布将为停止订阅或从未订阅有线电视的宽带用户提供单独服务。HBO告诉投资者，服务将直接面向这1000万美国人，他们使用有线方式上网，而不是每月支付100美元订阅包括HBO和娱乐时间(Showtime)在内的多个有线电视频道。
HBO’s move, in response to the rise of Netflix, an “over the top” service that does not require a cable subscription, is a big moment in broadcast history. It was followed by CBS, the broadcast network, unveiling a $5.99 a month online service, and promises to reset how US customers watch and pay for their television programmes.
HBO的举措是为应对Netflix（一项无需订阅有线电视就能向客户提供节目的OTT(over the top)视频服务）的崛起而做出的，这是广播电视史上的重大时刻。哥伦比亚广播公司(CBS)之后也效仿了HBO的做法，推出了5.99美元每月的在线服务，并承诺将改革美国用户收看电视和付费的方式。
Some analysts go further, suggesting that this will undermine bundling itself, and with it the economics of television. If people decide to buy popular programmes and channels à la carte rather than taking the 500-channel set menu, $70bn of revenue could vanish in the US. “Unbundling dwarfs any other risk to the television ecosystem,” Laura Martin, an analyst at Needham, an investment bank, wrote last year.
一些分析师更进一步，指出这将削弱捆绑销售模式本身乃至电视制播的经济性。如果人们决定按照单点的方式购买受欢迎的节目和频道，而不是按照固定菜单订阅500个频道，700亿美元的营收可能在美国就此蒸发。“和去捆绑化相比，电视生态体系面临的其它任何风险都相形见绌，”投行Needham的分析师劳拉•马丁(Laura Martin)去年写道。
If, that is. There is clearly a move to what Ms Yellen called “mixed bundling” – the combination of set menu and à la carte. But the bundle is not dead simply because it is possible for the internet to fragment distribution entirely, with customers making micropayments for every ingredient of every dish.
不过，那只是如果而已。业界显然出现了耶伦所说的“混合捆绑”的动向——将固定菜单和单点菜单结合起来。但仅仅因为互联网可以使电视节目的销售完全碎片化，让顾客为每一道菜的每一种食材支付少量费用，并不会导致捆绑销售的消亡。
In practice, most people prefer a simple life and some choices to be made for them, as long as they feel that they are getting a bargain. Indeed, consumers and businesses are increasingly paying subscriptions for digital packages of software and content, rather than buying them piecemeal.
实际上，对大多数人来说，只要他们认为自己享受了优惠，他们更喜欢简单的方式，让他人替自己做出一些选择。的确，越来越多的用户和企业选择订购软件和内容的数字服务包，而不是零散购买。
This is evident in music. Digital piracy and services such as Apple’s iTunes initially fragmented consumption, leading consumers to stop buying albums and to choose individual tracks instead. A growing number, however, now subscribe to all-you-can-hear subscription services such as Spotify.
这一点在音乐方面表现得很明显。电子盗版以及如苹果(Apple) iTunes这样的服务最早使消费碎片化，致使消费者停止购买专辑，改为购买单曲。然而，现在有越来越多的用户付费订购如Spotify这样的“无限量收听”服务。
It is occurring in software, with cloud-based subscription packages replacing shrink-wrapped discs. The rise of software-as-a-service companies such as Salesforce.com has challenged software providers such as Oracle.
软件方面也是如此，基于云服务的订购服务包替代了塑封光盘。类似Salesforce.com这样提供“软件即服务”的企业正在崛起，挑战像甲骨文(Oracle)这样的软件供应商。
IBM ’s poor financial results this week come as it struggles to compete with providers such as Amazon, which are offering cloud-based technology.
IBM近期公布的财务业绩不佳，无独有偶的是，该公司正面临亚马逊(Amazon)等云服务提供商的激烈竞争。
It is also happening in television. In parallel with the push toward wider access to premium shows, cable and satellite companies are drawing customers into combined “triple play” subscriptions that fuse together telephone, broadband and television. Of British Sky Broadcasting’s customers, 37 per cent are now on triple play, compared with 23 per cent four years ago.
电视业也在发生同样的事情。在努力扩大精品电视节目的覆盖人群的同时，有线电视公司和卫星电视公司正在引导用户订购将电话、宽带和电视融为一体的“三合一”服务。英国天空广播公司(British Sky Broadcasting)目前有37%的用户使用三合一服务，而4年前使用该服务的用户占23%。
The fact that bundling refuses to die is not surprising. As Ms Yellen and other economists have pointed out, it is an attractive pricing strategy for businesses because it is an effective way of appealing to groups of consumers with similar appetites, without the hassle of setting hundreds of prices.
捆绑销售拒绝退出历史舞台，这个事实并不令人惊讶。正如耶伦和其他经济学家指出的，对企业来说，这是一种富有吸引力的定价策略，因为捆绑销售能有效地吸引口味相似的消费者群体，企业又不必费心设定数百种价格。
Consumers like bundles for several reasons. One is that they are a form of insurance – paying a flat fee and being able to watch as much as you like is akin to insuring against an unpleasant shock when the bill arrives. Another is that it takes too much mental effort to keep on calculating whether any individual programme or channel is worth the à la carte price by itself.
消费者喜欢捆绑销售的原因有几个。一个原因是捆绑销售是一种保险——支付一笔固定费用后，你可以想看多少节目就看多少节目，与投保以避免账单到来时感到震惊和不愉快的行为非常类似。另外一个原因是，要不停地计算花费单点的价格订阅某个节目或者频道是否值得太费精力。
Although digital technology seems to foster fragmentation, it makes bundling simpler and more attractive. There is logic to the fact that most physical goods are priced individually while digital ones are often grouped. In the online world, it is easier to discover the right price – one that attracts most consumers – for combinations.
尽管数字技术似乎促进了碎片化，但它也使捆绑销售显得更简单，更有吸引力。绝大多数实体商品采用单独定价，而数字产品往往采用捆绑定价，这个事实符合逻辑。在网络世界，发现套餐的合理价格更容易——也就是吸引最多消费者的价格。
The marginal cost of online distribution is near-zero: once a customer has a broadband link, it costs nothing to offer another item. This helps networks to discriminate flexibly – HBO thinks it can appeal to disenchanted cord-cutters without losing committed cable subscribers. Rather than abolishing bundling, the internet enables it to be practised with greater efficiency.
在线销售的边际成本几乎为零：一旦客户有宽带连接，要销售另外一件商品或者服务几乎不用花费任何成本。这帮助电视公司采取灵活的区分策略——HBO认为，它既可以吸引失去兴趣的“掐线族”，又不会失去忠实的有线电视订户。互联网没有废除捆绑销售，而是提高了捆绑销售的效率。
That is what we are witnessing. The choice of everything or nothing is giving way not to anarchy but to a wider menu of set meals and à la carte. The bundle is dead; long live the bundle.
这就是我们见证的潮流。“要么全买，要么别用”的选择并没有变得混乱无序，而是让位于一份囊括固定套餐和单点菜品的更大菜单。旧的捆绑销售已经过时；为新的捆绑销售欢呼万岁吧！
