Why publishers are unbundling subscription features

“There are only two ways to make money in business: bundling and unbundling,” former Netscape CEO Jim Barksdale once quipped. It’s an aphorism that’s cited frequently in relation to media, and one that’s often used to explain the rise of streaming services and creator platforms such as Substack and Patreon.  Now, publishers are exploring how that sentiment might be applied to their subscription products. A growing number are breaking apart and repackaging existing subscription features in an attempt to extract greater revenue from their content and audiences – moving away from broad, catch-all products and instead offering multiple subscriptions designed to service the needs of more targeted and granular audience segments. The relationship betwe