2 . Shrinkflation has made British shoppers unhappy. For years, producers have quietly shrunk product sizes rather than rise prices. A multipack(合装包)of Fazzles, used to cost £1 ($1.36) and contain eight bags. Now it contains six. Cadbury’s Creme Eggs used to come by the half-dozen; now they come in fives. Quality Street, a chocolate box, weighed 1.2kg in 2009; today, just 650g.

The logic of Shrinkflation is that consumers are less likely to notice it than its alternative: higher prices. For years, the government has worked on the same principle. Taxpayers paid roughly the same, but government services became worse. Now an era of price increases in the form of tax rises has begun. In a nasty combination of inflation and shrinkflation, voters will be expected to pay more for less.

It will be an awkward shift. Since coming to power in 2010, the Conservatives (保守党) have used shrinkflation just as retailers do. In the early austerity (财政紧缩) years, the government shrank (收缩，减少), but its cost did not. As a percentage of GDP, it fell from a peak after the financial crisis of 46% of GDP to 39%. Taxes stayed around their historic norm of about 32% of GDP. But citizens received fewer services.

And, as when shoppers fail to notice the missing packet of Frazzles, voters did not care much at first. Weekly bin collections became fortnightly or monthly. Once-generous legal aid became mean; in-work benefits fell; police solved fewer crimes. But eventually voters and shoppers start to feel confused. Was a box of Quality Street always so small? Were the police always so used to fraud (诈骗)? Moreover, shrinkflation cannot continue forever. Just as people will not buy an empty packet of Frazzles, taxpayers will not pay for government services that are not provided at all. Eventually prices must rise — as the Conservatives are discovering. By 2026 the tax burden will be 36% of GDP, the highest since the post-war era, under Clement Atlee. This will cause several problems such as one of expectations. Atlee’s government promised a new Jerusalem (耶路撒冷): voters accepted higher taxes in return for a welfare(福利)state. Similarly, when New Labour governments raised taxes in the 2000s, they provided more in return. They increased national insurance, in order to bring heath care spending in line with other European countries. Schools were rebuilt and repaired; civic art, though sometimes of questionable quality, appeared in town squares.

Unfortunately, this time higher spending will at best stop things getting worse. Sajid Javi, the health secretary, admits that the health-and social-care systems will struggle even after a 2.5 percentage-point rise in national insurance,

“Is that all we get for £12bn” asked the Daily Mail, a newspaper that lends to see eye-to-eye with the Conservatives, when the plan to cut hospital waiting-lists was announced. British voters are often said to want American taxes and a European welfare government. Instead, they face paying European taxes for services as insufficient as those in American.

8 . Frato’s Pizza looks like a typical family restaurant, with its black-and-white checkered floor and red chairs. But in the kitchen, the cooks are cooking for four other restaurants at the same time.

There is, of course, the delicious pizza that customers have come to expect from Frato’s when they walk through the door. But there are also spicy chicken gyros for Halal Kitchen, barbecue chicken tenders for Tenderlicious, salmon grilled cheese for Cheesy Deliciousness and Butterfinger milkshakes for Heavenly Shakes, all of which can only be ordered through online sites Grubhub, DoorDash and UberEats.

Owner Michael Kudrna launched the four spin-offs (分店) earlier this year in a matter of weeks as he races to keep his Chicago-area business ahead of a growing trend: restaurants designed only for delivery or take-out.

Thousands of restaurants are experimenting with these virtual spin-offs tucked (隐藏) inside their own kitchens. Others are opening “ghost kitchens”, where all food is prepared to go.

Both concepts have come out to take advantage of the rising popularity of ordering out instead of dining in. The trend also speaks to the growing power of third-party delivery companies, which have transformed the way many people find restaurants and raised expectations for speed and convenience.

The $26.8 billion online ordering market is the fastest-growing source of restaurant sales in the United States, according to David Portalatin, a food industry adviser for The NPD group. Digital orders, while still accounting for just 5% of all restaurant orders, are growing by some 20% each year. Restaurant visits, meanwhile, are remaining mostly flat.

In this case, UberEats has helped launch 4,000 such virtual restaurants worldwide and about half of them are in the U.S. and Canada, according to Kristen Adamowski, head of Uber’s virtual restaurant program.

Grubhub and UberEats say their virtual restaurant programs help small businesses compete in this landscape. Both actively reach out to restaurants with suggestions for online spin-offs based on data collected from customer searches — extending their influence from how people get their food to what should go on the menu.

Virtual restaurants also have the obvious benefit of testing new concepts without taking on the high rent or hiring more staff, said Rick Carmac, head of restaurant management at the Institute of Culinary Education in New York.

9 . Last December, Warner Bros announced that its entire 2021 slate (提名) of releases would be going digital in the US, its most important market. It’s likely the same will happen in Britain too. This means that most people will be watching the most blockbusters (大片) such as Dune and the fourth Matrix film, not in cinemas, but on the small screen.

However, it’s not just about the pandemic. COVID has merely accelerated existing trends, because film streaming and the role of Big Tech in the film industry is shaking up the entire economics of filmmaking.

Today, the biggest players in the film industry are streaming services. There’s Netflix, Amazon Prime Video, Apple TV+, Disney+, and US telecoms company AT&T, which owns Warner, has its own streaming service in the US called HBO Max, which is expected to launch worldwide this year.

And this changes everything. For instance, though Hollywood has always had some creative accounting practices, it now seems completely reasonable that films do not have to make a profit in order to be successful. Why? Because instead of worrying about selling tickets to individual films, these companies are much more interested in maintaining your monthly subscription (订阅) fee, with their investments paying off not in the short term at the box office, but in the long run.

Streaming is also changing the form of what we watch. For instance, when Disney decided to make Star Wars spin-off (周边产品) The Mandalorian, it made it as an eight-part TV show, not a movie. This wasn’t a trick to save money. But it’s because the more important thing for streaming services is increasing the time you’ve spent watching. If you watch as the show is released week-by-week, you’ll have to keep subscribing for two whole months in order to follow it through to its conclusion.

Perhaps the strangest transformation though is the business models behind the streaming services. For everyone aside from Netflix, film and TV is just a valuable form of advertisement for where they really make their money.

The only reason Apple has a streaming service is because it’s a source of recurring (循环的) interests. Over time a monthly fee is more valuable than a one-off iPhone purchase, and is more likely to lock you into another iPhone purchase in the future, if they can watch Apple TV on it.

Disney actually makes most of its money from the selling of its resort holiday packages to its Disney theme parks. What Disney really wants you to do is book a pricey trip to Disney World in Florida. Disney+ is really about making your kids fall in love with their characters.

And what about Amazon? It is all about Amazon Prime, the company’s subscription service that bundles (免费附送) its streaming offerings with its other products and services, such as free shipping on goods. Once the company had hooked you in with the promise of some blockbuster films and TV shows… Well, you’ll suddenly find yourself buying a lot more from Amazon too.