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Uber is much in the news recently, for mostly the wrong reasons. One of its senior executives threatened to investigate journalists who wrote negative things about the taxi service platform. An Uber passenger was allegedly attacked by a driver. And an Uber-affiliated driver ran over a pedestrian in San Francisco. And the company’s CEO has been accused of fostering a frat boy culture.
打车应用Uber最近吸引了很多媒体的关注，但引发关注的可不是什么好事。该公司一位高管近日威胁称，要对一位给Uber写负面新闻的记者进行调查。另外据称，一位用Uber打车的乘客被司机殴打。在旧金山，一位在Uber上提供服务的司机碾压了行人。而且，Uber的CEO因为据说培养了一种“兄弟会文化”而受人诟病。
Without downplaying the seriousness of these events, I believe the fundamental issues posed by Uber have less to do with the company’s specifics and more to do with a business model that works by offloading responsibilities, something that many other platform companies—businesses that make money by making connections rather than providing a real product or service—do as well. I am not sure people fully appreciate the many problems inherent in this type of business.
我无意淡化这些问题的严重性，不过我认为，Uber带来的这些基本性问题，与该公司一些具体的经营手法并没有多大关系，而主要是由于它采用了一种自身不承担责任的商业模式。除了Uber之外，其他很多做平台的公司——也就是通过扮演中介的角色赚钱，而不是自身提供某种产品或服务——也有同样的问题。我不知道人们是不是充分意识到了这种模式的许多内生性问题。
This summer, I used Airbnb to rent a house in Claremont, Calif. The booking fee was $79—more than 10% of the rental cost. Did the house have a king-sized bed, I inquired of the owner? She would put one in time for our rental, she assured me by e-mail.
今年夏天，我用租房应用Airbnb在加州克莱尔蒙特租了一套房子。预订费用是79美元——超过了租金的10%。我问房东，房子里有大床吗？她在电子邮件里回复说，等到我们入住的时候，她就会放一张大床进去。
Four weeks before the reservation date, I tried to reach her. No response. Airbnb provided only modest help, with a long lag between e-mailing them and getting any reply. In the end, no king-sized bed, so we stayed at the Sheraton in Pomona as hotels in Claremont were fully booked by that time. Airbnb did, with some prodding, refund our entire booking fee, but they didn’t have to. As the company’s terms of service clearly state, this is an online platform and “Airbnb is not an owner or operator of properties.”
在入住日之前四个星期的时候，我试图再次联系房东，但是没有得到任何回复。Anrbnb只是提供了非常有限的帮助，从我联系他们到收到回复之间隔了很长时间。最后，那间房子里没有大床，我们只好住进了波莫纳的喜来登酒店（Sheraton in Pomona），因为克莱蒙特的旅店当时都已经订满了。经过一番催促，Airbnb的确返还了我们所有的预订费用，不过其实他们不必这样做。正如该公司的服务协议明示的那样，这只是一个在线平台，“Airbnb并不是房产的拥有者或运营者。”
What a great business model. Airbnb collects money for providing a matching service on a highly scalable IT platform but faces none of the normal operating costs entailed in providing accommodations. The company is not responsible for maintenance and repairs, cleaning (or cleanliness, an issue that has caused a colleague of mine in Berkeley to stop using them)—or anything, really.
多好的一个业务模式啊！通过在一个具有高度可扩展性的IT平台上提供一种对接服务，Airbnb就能坐收大笔收入，它也无需承受与任何常规住宿服务相关的运营成本。Airbnb不用负责房子的维修和清洁工作（或者干净程度，这个原因让我在伯克利的一个同事不再使用Airbnb），其实它什么都不用做。
Making a business out of not being responsible
做一门不用承担责任的生意
Of course, Airbnb is not alone in perfecting a business model in which companies take fees for doing nothing other than facilitating transactions. As it makes abundantly clear in its terms of service, Uber does not function as a transportation carrier nor does it provide logistics services. Passengers and drivers, and maybe even pedestrians in the way of Uber cars, are pretty much on their own.
当然，Airbnb并不是唯一一家通过赚中介费挣钱的公司。Uber在其服务协议中也非常清楚地阐明，Uber既不是运输商，也不提供物流服务。所以无论是乘客也好，司机也好，甚至挡了车辆的行人也好，出了问题只能靠他们自己解决。
Similarly, eBay is not a retailer. As it explains in its user agreement, eBay does not “guarantee the existence, quality, safety, or legality of items advertised.” I bet the retailers who get stuck with toys with lead in them or with inventory they can’t sell wish they had thought of such a clever out.
与之类似，易趣(eBay)也不是一家零售商。就像它在用户协议中阐明的那样，易趣并不“保证所展示商品的存在、质量、安全性或合法性。”我敢说，那些因为销售含铅玩具而倒了霉的零售商，或是那些有大量存货卖不出去的零售商，肯定希望他们当初也能想到一个如此绝妙的生意。
The list of companies that build platforms but eschew responsibility for the quality or even availability of goods or services grows daily, and why not? Margins can be enormous if you don’t have to deliver anything other than a website.
现如今，通过构建中介平台来赚钱的企业越来越多，因为这样能规避为产品和服务的质量甚至可用性承担风险，所以何乐而不为呢？如果你除了网站之外什么都不用做，利润当然是非常可观的。
Give these companies credit for learning from experience. Remember Webvan, the startup run by a former Accenture executive that ran through $1 billion in an effort to build a business delivering groceries to homes? Webvan hired employees to drive trucks that the company purchased to haul products from its own distribution centers operated by extraordinarily complex software. Dumb business plan. Today, companies such as Instacart use contractors, not employees, to buy products at existing grocery stores and deliver it to people. Much less investment and risk.
要说这些公司还是学到了不少经验的。不知大家是否还记得Webvan，这是一家前埃森哲公司（Accenture）高管创办的企业，这家公司砸了10亿美元重金，试图提供日常生活用品送货上门服务。Webvan雇了很多人驾驶该公司自己购买的货车，然后利用非常复杂的管理软件，让司机从该公司自己的配送中心提货。现在看来，这个商业计划还真是蠢到家。如今像Instacart等公司使用的都是承包商，而不是自家的员工，从现成的食杂店里购买产品，然后递送给消费者。这种运营模式的投资和风险都小得多。
Amazon could follow suit and raise its profit margins significantly. Why should it have warehouses or warehouse employees? It, too, could turn itself entirely into a transaction facilitator and simply take a cut for bringing buyers and sellers together—never needing to house a book or anything else it sells.
亚马逊也完全可以跟个风，显著提高自己的利润水平。它为什么要搞自己的仓库并且雇那么多工作人员呢？它完全也可以把自己改造成一个中介，通过介绍买卖来提成——完全不需要储存书籍或其他商品。
No responsibility, greater profits
无责任，大利润
So, what’s wrong with this? Nothing, if you don’t mind a sort of Wild West business ecosystem. The nice thing about big companies with substantive physical businesses is that you can collect taxes from them, regulate them, enforce employment laws, and do all the other things that go out the window in the “new economy.”
那么，这种业务模式有什么不对的地方？其实没有任何问题，只要你不在乎它犹如“狂野西部”的商业生态系统。对于那些拥有大型实体业务的企业来说，最妙的一点是你能向他们征税并且监管他们，要求他们遵守劳动法，做所有其他你在“新经济时代”逐渐无法做的事情。
For example, while Airbnb posts requirements for its “hosts” to adhere to disability and anti-discrimination laws on its website, enforcement is obviously much tougher than it would be in dealing with a hotel chain. Many cities and counties that have passed hotel and occupancy taxes aren’t going to collect from Airbnb, which has finally agreed to collect taxes only in a handful of cities and leaves it to the individual “hosts” to comply with tax regulations.
比如，尽管Airbnb在网站上明文要求“房东们”必须要遵守残疾人法和反歧视法，但相较于一家连锁酒店，让他们执行这些法律的难度要大得多。很多已经通过旅馆税和占用税的城市和县都不会向Airbnb征收这些税，该公司最终只同意在极少数城市代收税款，而履行税法的义务则完全在个体“房东”一方。
There are regulations that govern how long people, particularly in transportation, can work. These regulations seek to protect drivers and others from accidents. Good luck enforcing those rules on thousands of independent contractors. And say goodbye to unemployment insurance and employer contributions to Social Security—because most of the people working for these companies are independent contractors, not employees.
有些法律规定了人们的工作时间（特别是交通业）。这些法规旨在保护驾驶员及他人免于遭受交通事故。但愿政府能够督促个体承包商遵守这些法规。另外，不要指望这些公司缴纳失业保险和社保金，因为大多数为这些公司工作的人都是独立承包商，而不是雇员。
The other nice thing about real businesses providing real products and services is that if there are problems, there is an entity that can offer remedies. The old Webvan would be responsible if it delivered rotten produce or bad meat from its warehouses, but not the new delivery services. Retailers like Nordstrom guarantee their products’ quality, not eBay. Limousine companies have established liability for hiring and supervising their drivers, and paying when things go wrong. Not Uber, although that remains to be seen as cases wind through court. Hotels carry liability insurance and have the financial wherewithal to protect guests who are assaulted by their workers or otherwise harmed by building safety problems. Not Airbnb, which certainly has plenty of financial resources but, as a “non-operator,” has shed any responsibility for what happens to you in your temporary rental.
提供实际产品和服务的企业还有一个好处，就是一旦出了问题，毕竟会有一个实体出来采取补救措施。比如，如果Webvan给消费者提供了变质产品或肉类，就得为此负责。诺德斯特龙（Norstrom）等零售商会给产品质量提供质保，但易趣不会。有一些租车公司在雇佣和管理驾驶员方面已经建立了良好的信用，一旦出了问题也愿意赔钱。而Uber就不会这样做——不过如果打起官司，会是什么结果还不好说。酒店一般都交了责任保险，也有必要的财务手段，一旦住客受到员工侮辱、伤害或其它安全问题，酒店会出面赔偿损失。Airbnb则不会这样，虽然该公司有大量经济资源，但是作为一家“非运营商”，不管你在短租期内出了什么问题，它早已把任何责任推卸得一干二净。
Offloading responsibility, including the responsibility for liability insurance, compliance with government regulations, and payroll taxes, saves costs, lots of costs. This gives new economy companies an inherent, and maybe even unfair, advantage over the competition.
这样推卸责任，包括推卸责任保险、遵守政府法规和缴纳工资税等责任，的确会节省大量的成本。这使得这些所谓“新经济”公司得以获得天生的、或许也是不公平的竞争优势。
Company attempts to shed responsibility for their employees—and costs—is an old story. Many years ago, some employers decided that having actual employees was a pain. There were the payroll taxes, the expense and time of hiring, legal exposure to wrongful discharge and discrimination suits if you fired people; all in all, too much trouble. So, employers offloaded employees and their work to temporary help agencies and contracting organizations, which is one reason that “nonstandard employment” has grown so rapidly and there are even associations representing the interests of the many companies operating in this industry.
企业推卸对员工的责任，削减成本，早已是老生常谈。很多年前，就有雇主觉得雇佣员工是件头痛的事。既要缴纳工资税，又要花时间去招聘，如果你炒了人家的鱿鱼，还要小心人家以不当解聘或是歧视为由把你告上法庭。所以有不少企业裁掉了不少员工，把他们的工作交给临时性支持机构和承包商来完成，这也就是所谓“非正规雇佣”发展得如此之快的原因之一。现在市场上甚至出现了一些协会，代表的正是这个行业中许多公司的利益。
The IRS and state employment services feared that they were going to lose out on unemployment and payroll taxes from independent contractors. So, they developed a checklist to ascertain whether “nonemployees” doing work for some company actually were or were not employees, and they conducted audits to ensure employees were treated as such.
美国国税局和各州就业服务部门担心，他们将无法掌握个体承包商的失业率和工资税情况。所以他们制定了一份清单，以确认为某些公司工作的“非雇员”究竟是不是雇员，然后进行审计以确保雇员获得合理待遇。
The jig may soon be up
好日子即将到头
Cities and states are beginning to try to impose some oversight on at least some of the new economy companies, although such efforts are often met with derision and characterized as stifling innovation. I am not sure that avoiding responsibility and legal liability is really as “innovative” as is sometimes claimed. Bypassing zoning regulations on where hotels can be located and negating licensing requirements related to who can pick up passengers poses risks that, if you believe the terms of service agreements, truly should make the buyer beware.
美国各州和各大城市已经开始对至少某些新经济公司实施监管，尽管此类努力经常会受到人们的嘲笑，并且背上了扼杀创新的罪名。我不知道推卸责任和法律义务是否真的属于“创新”。规避旨在监管旅馆位置的区划法规，对谁有资格开车载客的规定不管不顾，必然会带来一些风险，被服务一方真的应该警觉这些风险，如果你相信服务协议的话。
For those people who worry about income inequality, there is another reason to think twice about these new business models. In a careful analysis of 53 countries from 1960 to 2006, University of Michigan business school professor Gerald F. Davis and a colleague found that the higher proportion of employees who worked in large companies, the lower the level of income inequality. This makes sense because internal labor markets and the greater social contact among employees reduces variation in wages much more so than in market-like arrangements.
对于那些担心收入不均的人，还有一个理由让他们重新审视这些新商业模式。密歇根大学（University of Michigan）商学院教授杰拉德oFo戴维斯和他的同事对53个国家在1960-2006年之间的数据进行了仔细分析。他们发现，人们在大公司里工作的比例越高，收入不均的水平就越低。这一发现是有道理的，因为内部劳动力市场以及雇员之间更密切的社会交往，比市场安排更易于减少员工的收入差异。
Call me old-fashioned, but I actually like a company whose “terms of service” entails providing the product or service I am purchasing rather than stating all the things it is not responsible for. I prefer to buy from a company that stands behind its products, with management that cares enough about its customers to provide oversight of its employee workforce and quality assurance for its services.
你可以说我“老套”，但我的确更喜欢一家公司的“服务协议”里写明它究竟提供哪种产品和服务，而不是说它对任何事都不负责。我喜欢光顾的公司，是那种有自己的产品、有严格的管理、关心它的顾客、对员工提供监管、为服务提供质量保障的公司。（财富中文网）
