In the early days of covid-19, the tech industry was consumed by a sense of euphoria. With billions of people locked down at home, work and play were shifting online. Many hoped that the new normal would spark a huge productivity boom as firms digitised and workers spent less time commuting. The excitement was most evident in stockmarkets, where any firm related to this trend saw its share price surge. The value of an equally weighted portfolio of five pandemic darlings—call it the “l(fā)ockdown lunacy index”—increased by 320% from the start of the pandemic to its peak in August 2021. The tech-heavy nasdaq, by contrast, rose by 88%.?

在新冠肺炎疫情初期，科技行業(yè)沉浸在一種狂喜中。由于數(shù)十億人被鎖在家里，工作和娛樂正在轉(zhuǎn)移到網(wǎng)上。許多人希望，隨著企業(yè)數(shù)字化和員工通勤時間的減少，新常態(tài)將引發(fā)生產(chǎn)力的巨大繁榮。這種興奮在股市上表現(xiàn)得最為明顯，任何與這種趨勢相關(guān)的公司的股價都出現(xiàn)了飆升。由五位大流行寵兒組成的加權(quán)投資組合，稱為“封鎖瘋狂指數(shù)”，其價值從大流行開始到2021年8月達到峰值增加了320%。相比之下，以科技股為主的納斯達克上漲了88%。

The mania has ended. Today the lockdown lunacy index—which includes Netflix, a streaming service; Peloton, a maker of fancy exercise bikes; Robinhood, a stock-trading App; Shopify, an e-commerce platform; and Zoom, a videoconferencing firm—has fallen by more than 80% from its peak, far exceeding the 18% drop in the nasdaq. Zoom and friends are trading at below pre-pandemic prices.?

這種狂熱已經(jīng)結(jié)束。如今，包括流媒體服務(wù)Netflix、高檔健身自行車制造商Peloton、股票交易應(yīng)用Robinhood、電商平臺Shopify以及視頻會議公司Zoom在內(nèi)的“封鎖瘋狂指數(shù)”的股價已經(jīng)從最高點下跌了80%以上，遠遠超過納斯達克指數(shù)18%的跌幅。Zoom和友商們的交易價格低于疫情前的價格。

How worrying is this return to Earth? To be sure, some of it reflects gloomier prospects for the global economy, racked by inflation, war and rising interest rates. And it is disAppointing that two years of digitisation and remote work have not provided clear evidence of a productivity boom. Yet there are reasons still to be techno-optimistic. Much of the early enthusiasm may simply have been focused on the wrong types of firm. Though the pandemic darlings have fizzled, the shift towards ever greater digitisation continues. The true winners are not the flashy consumer-tech firms, but the companies that provide the infrastructure to enable this shift.?

這次“回落”有多令人擔(dān)憂? 可以肯定的是，這在一定程度上反映出受通脹、戰(zhàn)爭和利率上升折磨的全球經(jīng)濟前景更加黯淡。令人失望的是，兩年的數(shù)字化和遠程工作并沒有提供生產(chǎn)率激增的明確證據(jù)。然而，仍有理由對技術(shù)持樂觀態(tài)度。早期的熱情可能只是集中在了錯誤的公司類型上。盡管大流行的寵兒已經(jīng)失敗，但向越來越大的數(shù)字化的轉(zhuǎn)變?nèi)栽诶^續(xù)。真正的贏家不是那些華而不實的消費科技公司，而是那些提供基礎(chǔ)設(shè)施以實現(xiàn)這一轉(zhuǎn)變的公司。

Much of the decline of our lockdown index reflects shakier business models. On August 22nd Zoom reported that its year-on-year revenue growth had fallen to 8%, the lowest rate since the company listed in 2019. Three days later Peloton reported a nearly 30% fall in its quarterly sales, compared with a year ago. Subscribers are fleeing Netflix for other viewing platforms, such as Disney+. Robinhood is laying off a quarter of its staff as day traders cool on the markets.

封鎖指數(shù)的下降在很大程度上反映了商業(yè)模式的不穩(wěn)定。8月22日，Zoom報告稱，其收入同比增長已降至8%，這是該公司2019年上市以來的最低增速。三天后，Peloton公布其季度銷售額同比下降了近30%。Netflix的訂閱用戶正在流失到Disney+等其他觀看平臺。隨著日內(nèi)交易者在市場上“保持冷靜”，Robinhood正在裁員四分之一。

The fading work-from-home boom has affected the demand for hardware, too. Worldwide pc shipments are expected to decline by 10% this year; analysts reckon mobile-phone sales will tumble by 7%. A downturn in spending on video games and a series of crypto implosions have dented the sales of the powerful semiconductors used to mine digital currencies and render computer graphics.

在家辦公熱潮的消退也影響了對硬件的需求。今年全球pc出貨量預(yù)計將下降10%；分析人士認為手機銷量將下降7%。電子游戲支出的下滑，以及一系列加密技術(shù)的爆發(fā)，都影響了用于挖掘數(shù)字貨幣和渲染計算機圖形的強大半導(dǎo)體的銷售。

Look beyond the boom and bust of consumer tech, though, and you see the real successes. The market for the infrastructure technology that underpins people’s daily lives, such as cloud computing, cybersecurity and digital payments, is thriving. The cloud-computing industry is expected to grow to almost $500bn this year, up from $243bn in 2019. Amazon’s cloud offering, the largest in the world, is still growing at 33% each year. It accounted for three-quarters of the firm’s operating income over the past 12 months, and is propping up the tech giant’s ailing e-commerce business. Its closest rivals are the cloud services of Microsoft and Google. Their annual sales are growing by 40% and 36%, respectively.

不過，透過消費型科技的繁榮與蕭條，你會看到真正的成功。云計算、網(wǎng)絡(luò)安全和數(shù)字支付等支撐人們?nèi)粘Ｉ畹幕A(chǔ)設(shè)施技術(shù)市場正在蓬勃發(fā)展。今年，云計算行業(yè)預(yù)計將從2019年的2430億美元增長到近5000億美元。亞馬遜的云服務(wù)是世界上最大的，每年仍以33%的速度增長。在過去的12個月里，它占到了公司營業(yè)收入的四分之三，并支撐著這家科技巨頭境況不佳的電子商務(wù)業(yè)務(wù)。它最接近的對手是微軟和谷歌的云服務(wù)。他們的年銷售額分別增長了40%和36%。

Cloudification has created new demands for cybersecurity, another tech winner. The combined revenue at the three largest listed cybersecurity firms has almost doubled since the start of the pandemic. Their market capitalisation has tripled, and has come down only a fraction since the start of the year. Digital payments are another bright spot, thanks to lockdowns and social distancing. Three-quarters of iPhone owners use Apple Pay, up from half in 2019, and nine out of ten American retailers now accept it as a payment method. Almost 200m people in India and China have used some form of digital payment for the first time since the onset of covid. A third of adults in sub-Saharan Africa now have a mobile-money account, up from a fifth in 2017.

云化為網(wǎng)絡(luò)安全帶來了新需求，網(wǎng)絡(luò)安全是另一個技術(shù)贏家。自疫情開始以來，三家最大的上市網(wǎng)絡(luò)安全公司的總收入幾乎翻了一番。它們的市值增長了兩倍，自今年年初以來僅略有下降。由于封鎖和社交隔離，數(shù)字支付是另一個亮點。四分之三的iPhone用戶使用Apple Pay，這一比例高于2019年的一半，美國十分之九的零售商現(xiàn)在接受它作為一種支付方式。自新冠肺炎疫情爆發(fā)以來，印度和中國近2億人首次使用了某種形式的數(shù)字支付。撒哈拉以南非洲地區(qū)目前有三分之一的成年人擁有移動貨幣賬戶，這一比例高于2017年的五分之一。

Sanity reignsThe bubble may have burst on the pandemic’s darlings, but the drumbeat of digitisation continues. The less eye-catching technologies that provide the underlying infrastructure for the shift are the true beneficiaries of covid. Whether these will fuel a productivity boost one day remains to be seen. But there was more going on during the pandemic than lockdown lunacy.

對疫情寵兒的泡沫可能已經(jīng)破滅，但數(shù)字化的鼓聲仍在繼續(xù)。那些不那么引人注目的技術(shù)為這一轉(zhuǎn)變提供了基礎(chǔ)設(shè)施，它們才是新冠肺炎的真正受益者。這些是否會在將來的某一天推動生產(chǎn)力的提高，還有待觀察。但疫情期間發(fā)生的不僅僅是封鎖的瘋狂行為。