2018考研英语双语阅读：亚马逊太大了吗?

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　　Is Amazon too big?

　　亚马逊太大了吗?

　　Grocery shopping may never be the same, said Davey Alba at Wired. Amazon took a giant leap forward in its quest to become the "Everything Store" last week with its $13.7 billion, all-cash acquisition of Whole Foods. The deal, Amazon’s biggest ever, isn’t necessarily a surprise. Amazon "has been trying to crack the food delivery business for a decade." But while the online retailer has arguably perfected the art of putting dry goods on customers’ doorsteps, it has struggled to do the same with fresh food. That could change quickly now that Amazon has access to Whole Foods’ sprawling supply chain, as well as its 431 stores — most of them in wealthy areas — which could soon double as pickup points for online orders.

　　Davey Alba在 Wired上说：食品杂货店可能永远不会相同。上周，亚马逊向前迈进了一大步，以137亿美元的现金收购了全食超市，从而成为了“百货商店”。这是亚马逊有史以来最大的一笔交易，这并不意外。亚马逊“这十年来一直在尝试食品配送业务”。虽然已经可以说把干货完美送到客户家门口，但它也一直在努力让新鲜食品可以做到如此。随着亚马逊进入全食的供应链以及它的431家商店——大部分都在富裕区——可能很快就成为在线订单的收货点，这种情况可能很快会发生变化。

　　In the near term, this deal is pretty straightforward, said Derek Thompson at The Atlantic. "Amazon needs food and urban real estate, and Whole Foods needs help." The upscale supermarket’s revenue growth has tumbled every year since 2012, and investors have been pushing loudly for a sale to a larger grocer as the stock has nosedived. But in the longer term, this deal "is about Amazon as a ’life bundle,’ particularly for affluent Americans." Amazon Prime has already become like the cable bundle of old — "merchandizing convenience" with streaming entertainment and fast, free delivery. More than half of U.S. households with income over $100,000 a year are already Prime subscribers. With Whole Foods in the mix, Amazon’s dominance of the coveted "yuppie market" should only grow.

　　Derek Thompson在The Atlantic上说：“在短期内，这笔交易相当简单。亚马逊需要食物和城市房地产，而全食超市需要帮助。” 自2012以来，全食超市的收入增长每年都下滑，股票一落千丈，因此投资者一直在向大食品商大力推销。但从长远来看，这项交易“将亚马逊视为一个‘生活包裹’，尤其是对那些富裕的美国人来说。” 亚马逊金牌会员已经变得像旧电缆束——有流媒体娱乐和快速免费送货服务的“便利购买”。年收入超过100000美元的美国家庭中已经有一半以上是亚马逊金牌会员了。与全食超市联合，亚马逊的“yuppie market”的优势将只会增长。

　　"Amazon’s takeover of Whole Foods sent the stock of competing grocery chains plummeting," said Matthew Yglesias at Vox. But then, it’s hard to compete with a rival that doesn’t seem to care about making money. It’s not unusual for Amazon to report nearly zero in net income in quarter after quarter as the company plows money into developing new businesses, whether it’s producing original TV shows or building artificially intelligent speakers. Whole Foods under Amazon will almost certainly accept lower profit margins than it does now, "and that spells trouble" for nearly every other grocer in an industry already infamous for its razor-thin margins.

　　Matthew Yglesias 在Vox上说：“亚马逊收购全食超市使与其竞争的连锁食品杂货店股价暴跌。”但是，很难与一个似乎不在乎赚钱的竞争对手竞争。公司把钱投入发展新业务(无论是制作原创电视节目还是建立人工智能音箱)之时，亚马逊报告每季度净收入几乎为零，这并不寻常。亚马逊旗下的全食超市的利润率几乎比现在更低，这对几乎每一个有着微薄利润率的食品商来说“都是个麻烦”。

　　It’s not just groceries — Amazon is on the verge of swallowing our entire economy, said Alex Shephard at New Republic. Usually a firm’s stock price drops after it acquires a troubled business. Amazon’s surged, suggesting that Wall Street thinks the company "is so powerful that anything standing in its way is toast." Last year, Amazon sold "six times as much online as Walmart, Target, Best Buy, Nordstrom, Home Depot, Macy’s, Kohl’s, and Costco did combined," said Robinson Meyer at The Atlantic. It rents server space and computing power to Netflix and the federal government. It "lends credit, publishes books, designs clothing, and manufactures hardware." Consumers may love the convenience of having their groceries, entertainment, and more delivered right to their door. But it may not be long before we start asking ourselves whether Amazon "is just too big."

　　Alex Shephard在 New Republic上说：不仅是杂货店——亚马逊在吞噬整个经济。通常，一家公司陷入困境后，股价就会下跌。而亚马逊股价的激增表明华尔街认为该公司“已经强大到不可阻挡”。Robinson Meyer在The Atlantic说：“去年，亚马逊的线上销售量是Walmart, Target, Best Buy, Nordstrom, Home Depot, Macy’s, Kohl’s和 Costco加起来的六倍。”它向Netflix和联邦政府租用服务器空间和计算能力，并且“提供信贷、出版书籍、设计服装和制造硬件”，消费者可能喜欢这种把食品杂货、娱乐和更多的东西送到家门口的便利。但不久我们就会问自己亚马逊是否“太大了”。

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