备忘录快、更快、最快的时尚

快：H&M。更快Zara。最快Shein。这一进步改变了消费主义，加速了纺织品的生产，同时也损害了经济。Zara 打乱了 H&M 的阵脚，随后，Shein 又将两者赶下台。现在，H&M 开始进攻，试图重新夺回曾经的优势。

我们的希望是，重新挽回数以百万计被 Zara 和 Shein 抛弃的消费者。这一切都取决于两个相互竞争的理念：经济和环境影响。

快速时尚和运动休闲是有后果的；塑料制品并不是可以肆无忌惮地穿戴和丢弃的。

关于未来时尚的讨论充满了矛盾：年轻一代的购物者说他们想要保护环境。将这一理想与他们实际购买的商品相比较，你会发现他们 "拯救地球 "的集体理念中存在着裂痕。Z 世代通常被称为最具可持续发展意识和环保意识的消费群体。他们还推动了历史上最大的快速时尚公司 Shein 的崛起。相比之下，Zara 和 H&M 只是小零售商。哈佛商学院 2021 年的一份案例研究解释了 Zara 的母公司 Inditex 如何围绕供应链效率进行创新，以更快的速度生产出更符合潮流的产品。

Zara 是集团历史最悠久、规模最大的品牌，在 2018 年的销售额中约占 69%，即 180 亿欧元。Zara 成功的核心是基于反应迅速的供应链和快速商品周转的创新商业模式。Zara 在不到三周的时间内设计、生产并向商店交付新商品，从而能够不断更新产品系列，适应不断变化的顾客口味。

就在撰写本案例的两年后，Zara 现在又开始关注一个婴儿品牌：Shein 是打了类固醇的 Zara。Z 世代非常喜欢它。Shein已成为TikTok上的宠儿，用户们在那里分享从该品牌淘来的15美元连衣裙、10美元短裤和5美元上衣。这些衣服既便宜又时髦，专为一次性穿着而设计，在社交媒体上发布后就会被丢弃。这个概念并不新鲜，但在可持续发展的趋势下，它应该会过时。相反，这个想法却更有力量。

谢因的规模难以把握。该公司的运作比大多数公司都要隐秘，但显而易见的是，我们比以往任何时候都更清楚后果的严重性。快速时尚和运动休闲有非常明显的负面影响；塑料制品并不是用来随意穿戴和丢弃的。财富》杂志于5月31日撰文对Shein进行了深度报道，对其进行了叙述：

对全球投资者来说，倡导环境、社会和治理（ESG）方面的高标准越来越时髦，他们也同样为之倾倒。他们将 Shein 的估值抬高到 1000 亿美元，使其成为全球第三大最有价值的初创企业，仅次于字节跳动、TikTok 的中国母公司和埃隆-马斯克的 SpaceX。据彭博社报道，Shein 现在的价值超过了 H&M 和 Zara 母公司 Inditex 的总和。

尽管Shein创新的商业模式可能会降低消费者的价格，但观察家们抱怨说，Shein是在廉价劳动力、山寨商品和人工智能设计软件的支持下建立起自己的服装帝国的，这些软件鼓励消费者以对地球有害的速度抛弃旧服装。这些抱怨，再加上最近电子商务的放缓，使得该公司能否继续保持主导地位还很难说。

用《财富》杂志的话来说"Shein对环境的影响最终将导致其灭亡 "的说法充其量只是错误的。为什么？快速时尚的目标市场存在认知偏差。人们能在为 Instagram 购买 13 美元裙子的同时拯救地球吗？迄今为止，快时尚公司只是在被更快的公司取代后才失去了主导地位，这些公司能以更低的价格重复流行趋势。至于 Shein 的恶行是被顾客遗忘，还是被故意忽略，最终并不重要。因为价格实惠而被服装吸引的顾客，通常不会停下来问一件衣服为什么这么便宜。重要的是，底线证据表明，面对廉价的选择，年轻消费者会选择快速时尚。

Shein 的崛起是多种因素共同作用的结果。社交媒体加速了时尚的潮流周期。可持续时装价格昂贵，而消费主义浪潮的变化也让许多人认为时装不是一种投资，至少在潮流方面不是。在鼓励企业更加注重可持续发展的问题上，消费者经常被认为有责任 "用他们的钱投票"，但这从来都不是完全正确的。顾客会购买容易买得起的东西，尤其是在他们年轻的时候。

Shein 本身就是一个黑盒子。关于它如何采购和生产服装的信息很少公开，但数字和价格标签却不言而喻。该公司已经开始公开其在可持续发展方面所做的努力。Vogue 将此称为 "洗绿"：

每周都有令人震惊的 1500 万件服装从全球北方国家运抵坎塔曼托市场，使当地的纺织业遭受重创。

该公司聘请了一位全球环境、社会和治理主管，最近还宣布成立一个 5000 万美元的基金，用于抵消对环境的影响和处理废物问题。这不过是杯水车薪的 5000 万美元，对 Shein 在 TikTok、Snapchat、Instagram 和卡戴珊的忠实拥护者市场上所造成的影响来说，几乎是杯水车薪。本周，Shein 因与 OR 基金会合作而备受赞誉，该基金会将在三年内捐赠 1500 万美元，用于在加纳阿克拉解决服装浪费问题，那里是许多废弃服装的最终归宿。

这不过是在转移人们对垃圾填埋场的现实影响的注意力。Shein抨击浪费并捐献资金以引起人们对这一事业的关注可能会被认为是不真诚的。幸运的是，H&M 也在做类似的事情，它与 Lululemon 一起为接替Aii 的新组织捐款 2.5 亿美元：

"他说："我们试图证明的是，这是所有气候工作的重心，从纺织品交易所到时尚公益组织，再到其他许多致力于降低碳排放、提出解决方案并将其付诸试点的组织，都是这一工作的受益者。"这是一个集体的'我们'。这不是把钱交给 Aii，也不会用于其他气候工作。这是在创建一个中央集合基金，让我们都能开始考虑一个更综合的方法，而不是分散的项目工作，彼此不交流，重复工作。

要解决时尚界的 Shein 问题，靠的不是捐款、公共关系或承认错误。更有效的解决办法是在社交媒体上掀起一股远离快速时尚、追求可持续发展的潮流。但是，不能依靠 Z 世代的顾客来解决这个问题。随着新潮流的出现和 TikTok 的传播，让所有人都能效仿，现在是时候接受这样的事实：任何好心的顾客都无法阻止数百万人所希望的零售机器。

由 2PM 团队提供

备忘录苹果公司的财产税

For Apple, hardware is the afterthought. Content, digital land, and privacy is at the forefront.

Two announcements in the past 24 hours confirms as much. This week, Apple won its first Oscar for best picture. And according to Nikkei, Apple is lowering the output of iPhones and Airpods as inflationary pressures and supply chain issues persist. From where will the margin come?

The answer can be found in Apple’s recent investments. Between 2017 and 2021, Apple’s ad revenue climbed from $300 million to $4 billion, mirroring Facebook’s steep climb from $750 million to $4.2 billion between 2009 and 2012. Apple is nowhere near the size of Meta’s advertising business (the company reached $115 billion in 2021) but there’s reason to believe that Apple could grow a considerable business in a timeframe comparable to what was seen at Facebook (now-Meta). In Linear Commerce and Content Fortresses, I explained:

苹果公司的意图乍一看似乎很简单。该公司希望改善最终用户的隐私。这种良性的努力带来了一些额外的结果。

By upgrading its privacy practices, Apple will impair large ad networks that have grown with the help of those end users. This could potentially cripple Facebook’s current model with its new privacy demands. Apple has also opened the door to an unintentional adjustment to its privacy mandate. In doing so, the Mark Zuckerberg-led advertising company (and social network) will adopt a new way to accomplish its most critical objectives: revenue growth and user utility.

Apple understands that the web isn’t private and at its core, whether through Apple’s ATT (App Tracking Transparency) or newer privacy initiatives, they are prioritizing the end user and her privacy. In June of 2021, iCloud+ was announced as a premium subscription service that featured a service called Private Relay. It is designed to encrypt all connections (even the ones not using HTTPS) to hide your IP address and prevent anyone from knowing your location or your identity (including Apple). From iMore:

The connection uses QUIC, which is meant to be like TCP but with lower latency and HTTP/3, and because Apple encrypts the connection, even your ISP can’t see where it is on the web you want to go. All they see is the connection to Apple’s ingress proxy server. So, Apple knows your IP, but not the website you want to go to because that’s encrypted.

At that point, Apple will strip away your real IP address and replace it with a temporary IP address from a pool of available addresses.

Now, consider the pace in which Apple captures ground in industry. Over the previous four years, Apple’s advertising grew as quickly as Facebook’s between 2009 and 2012. There’s an even greater example. In September 2019, it was announced in the New York Times that “Apple steps into the movie business.” In March of 2022, Apple TV+ became the first streaming service to win best picture. Apple has built a fortress; it’s using content and commerce as its bricks and privacy as its mortar.

Private Relay has the potential to have a major impact on the advertising industry. As The Information explains, the feature was released in September to Apple iCloud+ customers who could elect to turn the feature on for Safari browsing and a small percentage of “insecure app traffic over port 80.” For now, users can still use Chrome or any other non-native browser. Additionally, platforms that have you logged in: Gmail, Youtube, Facebook, TikTok can track your movements through the first-party data that the platforms collect.

But one thing is certain, when third-party technology companies circumvent Apple’s new policies on privacy, it is likely to precede another drastic measure taken by the hardware manufacturer. When turned on, Private Relay creates a virtual private network, meaning the internet provider can’t track what websites a user is visiting, and the websites can’t see any identifying information about the visitors. With Apple’s recent pivot to privacy, there’s reason to believe that this feature will be rolled out more aggressively to more users, which would be yet another blow to other platforms like Meta and Google who are currently relying on IP addresses to workaround the existing privacy crackdowns that Apple implemented last year. From The Information:

If the Private Relay service expanded beyond Safari to stop the transmission of user IP addresses across mobile apps, ad industry executives say it would hobble the efforts many ad networks and ad tech companies have made to adapt to Apple’s earlier changes, known as App Tracking Transparency. Many of the workarounds that firms including Meta, Snap and Google developed in the wake of Apple’s changes rely in part on having access to groups of user IP addresses to measure whether ads the users saw led to sales.

These workarounds include using an IP address to determine if a visitor to the site then took further action, like making a purchase. There’s evidence that these workarounds were effective. A recent report from 9to5Mac noted Facebook’s success in identifying (short-term) workarounds, noted for a sudden surge in advertising performance:

In a company statement, a Meta spokesperson said it has “continued to adapt our systems to help businesses succeed while honoring privacy and shared extensive steps they can take to maximize performance and measurement on our platforms.”

While Apple said it would pull apps who violated its new privacy policies, there’s been no action against this type of workaround. It might have been biding its time, knowing that harsher restrictions to user visibility were coming, which would take a further hit on these tech companies’ advertising businesses. Regardless of Apple’s stated motivations, these moves are benefitting its own ad business while hampering others. At the same time, Meta and Google are not going to lay down without a fight – each company is equipped to build more counters to Apple’s moves. But the owner of the hardware ultimately controls the hosted content. This poses a problem no matter how big and mighty the advertising duopoly might seem.

And that’s not where Apple’s actions end. Email addresses are a critical currency for brand marketers who want to establish closer relationships with their customers. Discount codes and branded newsletters are pushed hard to visitors who go to a company website. Apple’s new Hide My Email feature, rolled out in December to iCloud+ customers, randomly generates an email for customers to share with a site to unlock access that hides their real email. Another marketing cornerstone and key touchpoint for advertisers is severed. That complicates future targeting efforts and obfuscates a clear view on who’s coming to the website and browsing and buying what.

And this means that while Apple continues to build a new identity around the importance of privacy, advertising efficacy on other platforms may continue to diminish. It’s also likely that we will see something similar from that other hardware / software company. Google may adopt similar strategies; the iOS vs. Android arms race tends to work like that. The loser in all of this seems to be Facebook and the many brands reliant on their advertising service:

It is unlikely that Apple reverses course on its ATT changes and its diminishing of the IDFA but an entire industry is in need of a middle ground. For many founders and executives, their livelihoods are on the line and it isn’t Facebook that will be remembered as the culprit. Apple must either resolve its decision in favor of the advertisers reliant on sales-driven marketing.

Facebook anticipates a $10 billion impact on its own advertising sales, a sum that represents tens of billions in goods and services traded. It’s unlikely that the hole left by the degraded performance of Facebook advertising will be filled by another digital platform.

 

Apple will need to continue growing its content marketplace; Tim Cook’s digital fiefdom will require greater (user-generated) content engagement. As such, it’s not leap in logic that Apple will build a platform for user-generated content (UGC). Don’t be surprised if Apple acquires one in the process. Twitter, anyone? Without greater advertising opportunity within the Apple ecosystem, digitally-native businesses will suffer from the collateral damage. Apple has become the solution for handheld consumer privacy; business owners deserve a capable alternative to the services that Apple is crushing with its new practices.

When Apple shuttered the iAd Network in June of 2016, few could have predicted how successful a second iteration of it could become just six year later. If Apple expands its iCloud+ offering to all users, it’s pursuit of digital advertising dominance will be official. The writing is on the fortress wall, built atop the land that Apple owns. That land is due to come with new property tax for all who enter.

备忘录人猿星球

We are living in a brave new world, a planet of the apes.

This week, decentralized autonomous organizations (DAOs) took another step into the mainstream with the airdrop of Bored Ape Yacht Club-licensed ApeCoins to BAYC’s existing community of crypto-wealthy ape owners. Andreessen Horowitz was heavily involved in this DAO, accruing nearly 14% of the available coins along with Animoca. The DAO drop follows Bored Ape parent Yuga Labs’ recently-announced $450 million round led by Andreessen Horowitz, according to the Financial Times:

The four founders of Yuga — until recently known only by their online pseudonyms such as Gargamel and Emperor Tomato Ketchup — were allocated 8 per cent. A group of “launch partners”, including Andreessen and Hong Kong-based NFT and crypto investor Animoca Brands, were together given a 14 per cent allocation, in exchange for helping prepare for the issuance.

This isn’t A16Z’s first rodeo. In December 2021, it was announced that Andreessen Horowitz made an investment into PleasrDAO, a blockchain-aligned group of crypto investors who partnered to acquire high-priced NFTs to fractionalize. One was the $4 million purchase of the Doge image, sold as 17 billion pieces that once amassed an implied market cap of $100 million. Just three years ago, the idea of this was unfathomable. The deal was highly visible to the crypto power users.

But unlike the intent behind many DAOs, ApeCoin ownership does not give you a governance interest in Yuga Labs, A16Z’s recent investment. Casey Newton explained:

ApeCoin DAO is not Yuga Labs, its PR firm took pains to explain to me in a press release Thursday. (This information was highlighted for me in a section of the release that was outlined in a box and headlined “Important facts.”) Rather: Yuga Labs gifted ApeCoin DAO a one-of-one NFT featuring a blue version of the Bored Ape Yacht Club logo. This NFT conveys along with it all rights and privileges of the logo’s intellectual property to the ApeCoin DAO. The ApeCoin DAO will decide how the IP is used.

This may not always be so easy to do from a regulations perspective. This week, I sat with an official at the Securities and Exchange Commission; she and I riffed on the next generation of securitization. I began researching the Howey Test in the context of the increasing popularity of DAOs. According to the Howey Test, a transaction is only an investment contract if:

  • An investment that requires money
  • There is an expected profit associated with the investment
  • The investment is a common enterprise
  • Profit comes by way of the third-party or promoter’s efforts

Oh yes, the SEC will certainly regulate investments like these. It was easy to see that most web3 consumers are unaware of what they are purchasing. In a recent academic paper published in the Boston University Law Review, it explains the potential for market failure due to information asymmetry or “the lack of understanding about what investors are buying.” It goes on to suggest that:

The relatively high perceived value of the interests in non-cash-flow monetizations suggests that some investors, possibly influenced by the recent history of rapidly rising prices, are looking to resale value.

Casey Newton’s recent essay mirrors this concern with respect to information asymmetry:

My guess is that it falls into the category of “legal for now,” a time-tested way for Silicon Valley startups to make money. But perhaps the Securities and Exchange Commission will have other ideas.

Regardless of the web iteration we’re operating in, consumer startups live and die by how well they live up to the promises they’ve made. It’s typical for investors to help founders fulfill those promises. In some cases, they can end up getting in between the vision of the founders and the reality for consumers.

The original direct-to-consumer retail boom was fueled by the same funds interested in Web3 today. In the worst case scenarios, failed startup autopsies reported stories of pressures to maximize investor interest, potentially clouding product decisions and roadmaps. They became cautionary tales. Web3 businesses are now pooling money from investors who view it as the next big opportunity. In The New Class System, 2PM laid out this opportunity in relation to how much time is now spent in online spaces:

Density precedes agglomeration, which influences consumer behaviors. Agglomeration economies are the benefits that come when firms and people locate near one another together in cities and industrial clusters. In short, agglomeration, once a physical phenomena, has digitized.

Consider the year-over-year growth in use for services like Slack, Microsoft Teams, Zoom, Instacart, Amazon, or Jokr. Consider the distance learning boom, the shift to home school, and the rising American ideal of remote work. And if you’re the type that is intensely into the internet, notice what seems like a sudden Web3 boom: NFTs, DAOs, and the normalization of cryptocurrencies as stores of value. We do more on the internet than ever before.

As early Web3 startups grow, how they handle the demands of their investors with the wants of their end users will play a role in shaping the future of Web3. I’d argue that the launch of ApeCoin is an example.

Understanding the Power of DAO

Bored Ape Yacht Club (BAYC) and its owner Yuga Labs is now the most powerful player – and among the most recognizable – in the Web3 space. Their decisions set the groundwork for others. The token associated with BAYC can be used to buy virtual goods and land in the Yuga Labs’ metaverse, according to the company. But the ApeCoin DAO is being held at arms’ length by Yuga Labs.

So far, ApeCoin DAO has decided to use the IP to reward all of Yuga Labs’ earliest backers. On Thursday, just a few days before today’s announcement, the DAO gifted a healthy chunk of the 1 billion total ApeCoin tokens to Yuga Labs, Yuga Labs’ founders, and the VCs who backed the project. Bored Apes owners got tokens as well. The coins hit a high of $40 per coin on trading markets before settling down to $12.20 today. At that price, VCs’ tokens are worth around $1.7 billion — far more than they have invested in the project to date. And that’s in addition to their equity stake.

DAOs are core to Web3’s promised land in that they are meant to decentralize control: they put the power in the hands of a community, which can mean everyday customers, fans and loyalists have the opportunity to buy into an organization they care about. With their tokens, they receive voting rights and other privileges that separate Web3 companies from Web2, in which only goods and services can be bought. In Web3, tokens are traded for control – or at least, a piece of it. With the majority of ApeCoin’s allotted tokens going to Yuga Lab’s major investors, can it still be considered decentralized?

ApeCoin risks diminishing the trust of its community by leaning into pleasing its investors and conventionally wealthy NFT owners. But there’s the potential of a favorable outcome for ApeCoin holders. By giving investors a return on investment long before the typical investment horizon, Yuga could be freed up to prioritize the consumer and the promises it made to its community. People will be watching. Whatever Yuga Labs does next will shape Web3’s next steps and, more than likely, the Security Exchange Commission’s.

Decentralized organizations were a key tenant of the Web3 promise. It may require one of our nation’s centralized organizations to determine which was the dominant species: the intelligent apes or regulators. The outcome may mean fewer airdrops for preferred guests, friends, family, and venture capitalists.