When my Wechat moments were scanned by the news that the General Administration of Market Supervision has conducted an antitrust investigation into BABA, I was in "Cyberpunk 2077". Discussing with Takamura on how to assassinate Arazaka's second generation, Wasaka Laixuan, and rescue the residents of Night City.

Johnny Silver hand strongly opposes me to do this, and his mantra is: "what good can the company have?" It's hard for you to think of people inside the company to fight against the company. "

Cyber punk 2077 is a great magical realism game, the good thing is that it is so magical and so realistic.

Someone solemnly told me that the theme of this work is to "reflect how beaters take up arms against giants". It so happens that the role chosen by the rogue group is the company's social animal. At the beginning, he was fired because of the company's infighting, lost his savings, apartment, insurance and all social identity, and became a street mercenary. Then I began to practice pistols, submachine guns, assault rifles, sniper rifles, shotguns, knives, samurai swords, mantis knives, and doing all kinds of shady things in dark, cobweb-like alleys. In the end, I don't know who is more evil than the company or me.

As for whether "Cyber punk 2077" reflects the "contradiction between workers and tycoons", I think. If you have a Buddha in your heart, everything you see is a Buddha. Because everyone is very angry about "capital" and "Internet giant", and public opinion is highly disadvantageous to them, so when you see any literary works, you will think of "beating workers VS capital / giant".

I was happy when I was playing games. I didn't study any advanced sociological principles, and I had no say in it.

Last night, a lot of people asked me: how serious is the Internet antitrust? Who will be next? Can you copy the bottom now? Are there any beneficiaries? Say ten thousand words, is the market overreacting?

My attitude has always been clear, and to sum up:

1. The matter of Internet antitrust is very serious, the competent department is very serious, it is by no means big thunder and little rain. The impact of antitrust cannot be overestimated and must not be mistaken for affectation.

2. Since at least 2019, the authorities have been seriously discussing the issue of "platform economy antitrust", focusing on e-commerce and O2O communication platforms at that time; now there is a momentum of further expansion, although it is not clear whether the concept of "platform economy" covers all Internet platforms.

3. Since at least 2018, the country's positioning of the Internet industry has changed, from "supporting the Internet industry as the locomotive of economic growth" to "hoping that the Internet will set up the stage and perform in the real economy." it is an established policy that the Internet platform provides growth space for small and medium-sized enterprises.

4. In the past three years, public opinion has also taken a great turn to the Internet industry. Go to brush Bilibili Inc., Zhihu Inc., Weibo Corp, you can find: "Internet capital / giant" has become the object of widespread resentment, limiting or even breaking up the Internet giant has a profound mass base.

Because "platform economy anti-monopoly", "the Internet sets up the stage, small and medium-sized enterprises sing" is the established policy, so this Internet anti-monopoly wave will certainly not be a gust of wind. Many people naively wonder whether they will investigate only one company or one industry segment this time; this is obviously impossible. As long as the antitrust wheel starts to turn, it can't stop easily-it will involve multiple sectors, multiple industries, almost all of the large companies.

In the history of China's Internet industry, which is slightly longer than 20 years, there have been three very important turning points:

• The first time was around 2000, riding on the east wind of the Nasdaq Internet bubble, the first batch of Internet companies grew up with the support of US dollar VC, and the initial popularity of PC Internet also brought the earliest users.

• The second time was around 2010, when the wave of mobile Internet swept the country; those "All-in Mobile" companies, including BABA, Tencent and Byte Jump, won the richest piece of cake. As the stickiness of mobile Internet users is much higher than that of PC, the Internet giants in the mobile era are also much bigger than they were ten years ago.

• The third time is around 2020, what is happening-the "policy dividend" once enjoyed by the Internet industry has disappeared, and the attitude of the authorities has been very clear; from then on, all "platform companies" will face stricter regulation, and M & An expansion will also be severely restricted.

The turning point that is taking place comes with a distinct "global simultaneity"-European regulators have long imposed many restrictions on Internet giants while China is still discussing "antitrust regulations on the platform economy." and the butcher knife of US regulators is likely to hit their best Internet companies at any time.

In fact, if the candidate launched by the Democratic Party this time was not Biden but Sanders, the split of Apple Inc, Alphabet Inc-CL C, Amazon.Com Inc and Facebook might have been put on the agenda a long time ago. American capital markets have long known that no matter who comes to power, the tech giants in Silicon Valley will not have any good results, but will be stabbed in some way.

In the global epidemic, only the share prices of Internet companies have risen all the way, because they have generally enjoyed the "home welfare" caused by the epidemic, and offline competitors have generally shrunk or even gone bankrupt. This has further sparked public resentment: the internet industry is seen as a vampire, draining the vitality of the real economy and taxing the world (though this is not true).

For regulators, the unlimited expansion of the Internet industry does not seem to provide any new vitality to the economy, but is destroying small and medium-sized enterprises, that is, destroying jobs. What I am talking about above is not the situation in China or the United States, but the situation that exists all over the world.

Internet giants, even the most powerful ones, are a long way from Arazaka in Cyberpunk 2077 (Arazaka is the man who can establish a colony on the moon); but the public already sees them as the "Arazaka company of the future". In this case, national regulators have ample incentive to warn, restrict and even break up Internet giants-and it would be strange not to do so.

In my circle of friends, there are some friends (including those in the investment community and the Internet) who are optimistic that this antitrust will stay at a relatively shallow level and will not really affect the business of Internet companies. Their reason is that the Internet industry is very important to China's economy, and hasty "surgery" on it will cause many side effects and will not stimulate economic recovery. I totally disagree with this illusion of over-optimism.

For the huge Chinese economy, no industry or company is so large that it is "so important to the economy that it cannot be touched" (except perhaps only agriculture). Even if a company with a market capitalization of hundreds of billions or trillions is restricted or broken up, it will only have a small local impact.

The same is true for other economies: Apple Inc, Alphabet Inc-CL C, Amazon.Com Inc and Facebook are also important to the US economy, but American lawmakers are still relentless when they talk about breaking up the tech giants. There is no sign of "too big to fail". Moreover, the attitude of the competent authorities is very clear: to allow the existence of the Internet platform, there is no intention to split or destroy the "platform" itself, but to require the "platform" to benefit merchants and the supply chain, thereby creating more jobs for small and medium-sized enterprises.

If the platform is willing to accept lower profit margins and less industry control, it can continue to exist as usual. The question is, how much profit and control does the platform have to sacrifice? No one knows.

Great Internet giants! Over the past decade, your profits have increased hundreds of times, creating a market capitalization of trillions. Now, the antitrust snowstorm is coming, put down your banner, the era of unlimited expansion is over! Will the future be better?

There is also a small possibility that the Internet platform, like hydropower and coal, may be transformed into a "utility platform", enjoying a low (but stable) profit margin under the national license and demarcating each other's boundaries. thus losing all the possibility of expansion. If this happens, it will be a bolt from the blue for capital markets and a bolt from the blue for employees-it is highly unlikely, but cannot be completely ruled out.

For Internet giants, it is definitely not a wise choice to focus on increasing profits and market capitalization. Between 2019 and 2020, the Internet industry has received too many historic dividends, and profits and market capitalization have expanded too much (or even overdrawn). In the current social atmosphere and regulatory atmosphere, smart Internet giants should take the initiative to slow down their profit growth and make a gesture to benefit society and small and medium-sized enterprises. As for the valuation of the capital market, it is not the first time to lose a little bit.

Finally, I would like to stress once again: in this antitrust wave, no large platform can be left alone. Some platforms may bear the brunt, some platforms may be affected later and smaller, but platforms that are not affected may not exist. If you have to find a "beneficiary", I'm afraid you have to look for it in a product / content / brand company.

In the long run, due to the sharp decline in the excess profits of the platform economy or even no longer exist, we may really usher in the era of "product is king / content is king".

The results should be funny: over the past two decades, all investors in China have wanted to invest in "platform companies", believing that "platform" is superior to "product / content" and that others work for "platform". Now under the tremendous pressure of antitrust, investors will sooner or later turn in the opposite direction and avoid "platform companies". The most likely thing, of course, is that no new "platform companies" will ever be born and listed again.

From the perspective of investors, I will be very pessimistic about the Internet industry in 2021. There is already a lot of moisture in valuation, and is facing regulatory pressure, whether it is domestic listing, overseas listing or the primary market companies, probably will not perform well.

As mentioned above, I think the right choice for large Internet companies is to make less profit and benefit small and medium-sized enterprises in the current environment, which will further affect their valuations.

But given that we are at such a huge turning point, a global crossroads we haven't seen in years, the performance of the share prices of a few Internet companies doesn't seem to matter that much, right? What do you think?