When the leaders of media, telecommunications, IT and Internet companies congregate, as they did recently in Davos, the talk is

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问题     When the leaders of media, telecommunications, IT and Internet companies congregate, as they did recently in Davos, the talk is upbeat about new accomplishments but subdued about recent ordeals: the dotcom bubble; the telecoms crash; the music industry bust; the advertising downturn; the e-publishing revenue stagnation; the PC slowdown; the wireless saturation; the semiconductor slump; the newspaper recession; tile R&D retrenchment. And the question is, why do these predicaments sweep over the information sector so regularly?
   The prevalence of these problems points to fundamental issues beyond a specific industry or short- term period. Instead, we need to recognize that the entire information sector — from music to newspapers to telecoms to Internet to semiconductors and anything in-between — has become subject to a gigantic market failure in slow motion. A market failure exists when market prices cannot reach a self-sustaining equilibrium. The market failure of the entire information sector is one of the fundamental trends of our time, with far-reaching long-term effects, and it is happening right in front of our eyes.
   The basic structural reason for this problem is that information products are characterized by high fixed costs and low marginal costs. They are expensive to produce but cheap to reproduce and distribute, and therefore exhibit strong economies of scale with incentives to an over-supply.  Second, more information products are continuously being offered to users. And information products and services are becoming more "commodified", open, and competitive.

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答案 上述低迷状况如此普遍,说明出现了一些根本性的问题,这些问题不仅限于某个行业,也不仅是短期内存在。相反,我们需要认识到,整个信息产业,从音乐、报纸、电信、互联网、半导体到业内任何领域,都已逐渐受到一个巨大的市场缺陷的影响。当市场价格不能达到自我持续的平衡时,市场就存在某种缺陷。整个信息业的市场缺陷是我们这个时代的根本趋势之一,这种缺陷具有长期、深远的影响,而且正在我们眼前发生。 这一问题基本的结构性原因在于,信息产品的特点就是固定成本高,而边际成本低。它们的生产成本高昂,但再生产和销售的成本低廉,因而展现出强大的规模经济效益,并容易诱发供应过量。另外,有越来越多的信息产品正源源不断地提供给用户,而信息产品和服务正变得愈加“商品化”、愈加开放,彼此竞争愈加激烈。

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