FEW choose how they die, but they can choose what happens next. Most leave this to loved ones who, in their distress, usually outsource the decision to an undertaker. The transaction is often a let-down, with hardly any choices beyond “Burn or bury?” and “Cheque or card?”

几乎没有人能选择怎么死去，但可以选择如何处理身后事。大多数人会这个委托自己的亲朋，但处于悲痛中的人通常会将此事委托予殡仪馆。这种生意常令人失望，因为殡仪人员只会一味询问你“尸体是火化还是土葬？”“您是用支票还是银行卡支付？”

The average American funeral with a burial costs nearly $9,000. In some countries, the exorbitant cost of staging a “proper” funeral can lead families to financial ruin. Nearly everywhere, the bereaved have put up with rip-off last rites because of the lack of better options. At last, technology and competition are starting to disrupt this most conservative of industries (see article). This is good news for anyone who plans to die one day.

美国土葬的平均开销接近9,000美元。而在另一些国家，办一场“适当”的葬礼花费极高，会使一个家庭“倾家当产”。在别无选择的情况下，几乎在世界各地，逝者的亲友都不得不支付高昂的价格，为逝者举办临终圣礼。技术与竞争终于开始颠覆这最为保守的行业。对每一个终将逝去的人来说，这是一个好消息。

The funeral trade has the most basic of business advantages: inexhaustible demand. Every minute more than 100 people die somewhere. Not all pay for a funeral. Tibetans still practise sky burial, leaving bodies on mountaintops; the Caviteño in the Philippines bury their dead in hollowed-out tree trunks. But in the rich world, dying is big business—an industry, for example, worth $16bn in 2017 in America.

丧葬业拥有最稳固的业务优势：永无止境的需求。这世界每过一分钟就有100多人去世。当然，并非每个人都会花钱办葬礼。西藏人就仍坚持天葬，将尸体安放在山顶（成为秃鹫的食物）；菲律宾甲米地人将尸体埋葬于挖空的树干中。但是在富裕地区，死亡却是一桩大买卖——成为一个行业。比如，2017年美国的殡葬业产值高达160亿美元。

Undertakers have long been able to get away with poor service. Their customers are typically distressed, under time-pressure and completely inexperienced (people in rich countries buy more cars than they do funerals). As a result, few shop around, let alone haggle. With consumers docile, providers can keep quality low and prices high—much like tourist-trap restaurants, another one-off purchase made in haste with little information. Some sellers have made matters worse with techniques ranging from opaque pricing to emotional blackmail. The asymmetry in knowledge between undertaker and grief-stricken client allows ludicrous markups on things like coffins. It also makes it easier to sell services that people do not realise are mostly unnecessary, such as embalming.

殡仪人员一直以来不会因服务恶劣而遭到惩罚。客户通常正处于悲痛中，加之时间紧迫又缺乏经验（有钱国家的人买车多，而办丧礼少），也就无心他顾。因此，人们几乎不会货比三家，更别提讨价还价了。由于客户好忽悠，殡仪人员就能够偷奸耍滑，提供价高而劣质的服务，类似于专坑游客的餐馆，不求回头客的快速购物体验。一些卖家甚至利用下三滥的手段变本加厉，从隐瞒价格到情感勒索，无所不为。殡仪人员与悲痛欲绝的客户彼此信息不对称，导致他们可以荒谬地坐地起价，例如棺材价格飞涨。这也使得他们更为容易地售卖毫无价值的服务（例如对尸体进行防腐处理），因为人们并没有意识到这一点。

But now undertakers’ market power is being challenged on at least three fronts. One is changing customer demand. Driven in part by the decline of religion, and broader shifts in attitudes to death and dying, fewer bereaved are ready to cede their dead unthinkingly to an off-the-shelf burial. They prefer shrouds and woodland burials to coffins and graveyards; celebrations of life to sombre rituals in funeral homes; and video tributes to a life just lost to displays of the embalmed dead.

然而，如今殡仪人员的市场力量至少受到了三方面的挑战。一是客户需求发生改变。一个原因是随着宗教势力的减弱，人们对死亡的态度发生了改变，越来越多的死者亲属不愿草率地将逝者交给现成的葬礼。他们更乐意给尸体穿上寿衣，进行林地埋葬，而不是放入棺材，埋进墓地；更乐意歌颂生命的宝贵，而不是在殡仪馆举办沉痛的葬礼仪式；更乐意用视频缅怀逝者，而不是向悼念者展示防腐的尸体。

Second, more and more, they choose cremation, which is cheaper than burial, and allows a “direct” form in which the disposal of the body is handled without fuss, and kept separate from the commemoration of the life lost. And third, the internet is disrupting death as it has life. Comparison sites shed light on funeral providers’ services. And though not many bereaved relations yet “bring their own coffin”, a quick browse online gives people a far better idea of what it should cost. Startups are offering more radical disruption: rocket-launches for ashes; QR codes on graves linked to online tributes; new ways of disposing of bodies besides burying or burning.

二是越来越多的人选择火化，这比举办葬礼花费少很多。如此一来，人们就不用过度操心遗体的处理——遗体都化成灰烬了。同时，还可与逝者的纪念活动分开。三是互联网的发展消解了死亡的意义。不同的网站为人们提供了更多有关葬礼的信息。尽管没有太多的死者亲属“购买自己的棺材”，但快速的线上浏览让人们更加明了葬礼的应有开销。创业企业造成的影响更加剧烈：将骨灰放置于火箭中一同发射；在坟墓上刻二维码，一扫就可以看到线上悼词；除了埋葬或火化之外的新式尸体处理法。

The nail in the coffin?

棺材板上钉钉子？

Nobody is yet writing undertaking’s epitaph. But the industry will have to adapt. The first signs of a shift are already on display in America, where funeral-home revenue is projected to stagnate despite an annual death rate—the industry’s lifeblood, after all—that is expected to rise. In Britain a price war between the largest providers may at last cause prices to drop.

如今已无人再写墓志铭了，丧葬业不得不适应这一现状。转变的先兆在美国已有所体现，尽管丧葬业的命脉，即年死亡率预计会有所增长，但殡仪馆的收入却预计会有所停滞。在英国，最大卖家之间的价格战可能最终会导致价格下跌。

The most important effect of all this disruption is not just cheaper funerals and fewer debt-burdened families. It is a more profound shift in returning to consumers perhaps the most personal of all decisions: control over their farewell.

所有这些扰乱因素带来的最大的影响不仅仅是葬礼更加便宜，家庭经济负担有所减少。对顾客而言更为深刻的转变可能在于所有决定中最人性化的一面：自己决定如何告别。

编译：

编辑：翻吧君

来源：经济学人（2018.04.14）