战略信函V

When I was in college I took two intro economics courses: macroeconomics and microeconomics. Macro was full of theories like “low unemployment causes inflation” that never quite stood up to reality. But the micro stuff was both cool and useful. It was full of interesting concepts about the relationships between supply and demand that really did work. For example, if you have a competitor who lowers their prices, the demand for your product will go down unless you match them.

当我在大学时，我选了两门经济学入门课程：宏观经济学和微观经济学。宏观课程充满了 "低失业率导致通货膨胀 "这样的理论，但这些理论在现实中都不太成立。但微观的东西既酷又有用。它充满了关于供应和需求之间关系的有趣概念，这些概念确实有效。例如，如果你有一个竞争对手降低了他们的价格，对你的产品的需求就会下降，除非你和他们一样。

In today’s episode, I’ll show how one of those concepts explains a lot about some familiar computer companies. Along the way, I noticed something interesting about open source software, which is this: most of the companies spending big money to develop open source software are doing it because it’s a good business strategy for them, not because they suddenly stopped believing in capitalism and fell in love with freedom-as-in-speech.

在今天的节目中，我将展示其中一个概念是如何解释一些熟悉的计算机公司的。一路走来，我注意到关于开源软件的一些有趣的事情，那就是：大多数公司花大钱开发开源软件，是因为这对他们来说是一个很好的商业策略，而不是因为他们突然不再相信资本主义，而爱上了自由即言论。

Every product in the marketplace has substitutes and complements. A substitute is another product you might buy if the first product is too expensive. Chicken is a substitute for beef. If you’re a chicken farmer and the price of beef goes up, the people will want more chicken, and you will sell more.

市场上的每种产品都有替代品和互补品。替代品是指如果第一种产品太贵，你可能会购买的另一种产品。鸡肉是牛肉的替代品。如果你是一个鸡农，而牛肉的价格上涨，人们会想要更多的鸡肉，你就会卖得更多。

A complement is a product that you usually buy together with another product. Gas and cars are complements. Computer hardware is a classic complement of computer operating systems. And babysitters are a complement of dinner at fine restaurants. In a small town, when the local five star restaurant has a two-for-one Valentine’s day special, the local babysitters double their rates. (Actually, the nine-year-olds get roped into early service.)

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