Bundling and Unbundling

Cable TV charged you $120 a month for 200 channels to watch the five you wanted. Then streaming unbundled it, prices started low, and now a household with sports, prestige TV, and kids content pays more than the old cable bill across five separate apps with five separate logins, and people are starting to say cable was actually convenient. The pendulum swung, and Disney and Comcast began offering re-bundles at a discount. The cycle repeats everywhere: Microsoft bundled Office, Google unbundled it into free web apps, Microsoft re-bundled into 365. Fintech startups unbundled the bank, then started bolting products back on.

For founders and operators, Jim Barksdale's old line that there are only two ways to make money, bundling and unbundling, is an overstatement that is also basically true. Bundling captures more value and hides weak products behind strong ones; unbundling wins by doing one thing cheaper and simpler than the incumbent's package. The whole game is knowing where in that cycle your market actually sits, because picking wrong means you either over-bundle into bloat or unbundle into a feature. How to read where the pendulum is, and when it swings back, is what the app holds back.