I appreciate this article, Sam! The “Great Decoupling” feels a lot like what some refer to as “COPE”, or “create once, publish everywhere” in the content industry. In this industry, it is the content that’s the product, not the interface you’re using to view it (it’s the article, not the magazine; it’s the interview show, not the radio station). NPR perfected this COPE approach, and built its business around its powerful, well-structured API that let it get its content to more channels faster and leave more time and money to focus on content.
There are businesses to be built on both sides of that equation — the content, and the channel — but what I see and I think your article describes well is that the content space is much easier to break into than the channel. Channels are the places where the big boys play because channels are where the people are, and the fight for their time and attention is the biggest fight there is. Yet, channels rely on content, and rarely are channels producing all their own content. If you can provide great content, the channels need you, and that’s still a really, really valuable thing.
This is why building a business around a standalone app — a standalone channel — can be so difficult (and I learned this from experience). If your product is content, you’re much better off going to channels — all the channels! — where there’s an audience already than trying to lure an audience away from where they’re already entrenched.
