As tech platforms experiment with TV content, a look at how corporations controlling music and ebooks lost their strategic value to tech companies
People in tech and media have been saying that ‘content is king’ for a long time - perhaps since the VHS/Betamax battle of the early 1980s, and perhaps longer. Tweets: @craigmod , @benedictevans , @trengriffin , @mdudas , and @donaldrichard Tweets: @craigmod : “Like Spotify, the Kindle app is on any platform, so it doesn't stop you switching devices.” http://ben-evans.com/... Benedict Evans / @benedictevans : Content isn't king. Music & books now have little strategic relevance for tech - TV will probably be the same http://ben-evans.com/... Tren Griffin / @trengriffin : AAPL “selling smartphones is a subscription business... pay an average of $700 or so every two years (ie $30/month)” http://ben-evans.com/... Mike Dudas / @mdudas : A great read on tech platform strategy, points of leverage and incentives with respect to video http://ben-evans.com/... via @BenedictEvans http://twitter.com/... Don Richard / @donaldrichard : “Without some platform decision to lock you into, content is marketing, and revenue, but not a lever.” http://ben-evans.com/... http://twitter.com/...
Context & Ripple Effects
Benedict Evans' argument runs against the oldest cliché in media-tech: that 'content is king,' a claim dating back at least to the VHS/Betamax fight. His evidence is what already happened to music and ebooks — once the Kindle and Spotify apps ran on every platform, the corporations controlling those catalogs stopped mattering strategically to tech companies, because software ate the distribution layer and faded into the background.
TV is the live test case: tech platforms are experimenting with TV content just as the economics around video shift — US pay TV subscriptions are falling while Amazon's ad revenue passes YouTube's, pulling budgets toward targetable distribution. The pattern matters because if TV follows music and books, the leverage sits with whoever owns the customer relationship, not the catalog.
First-order effects
- Rights holders in TV now face the same dynamic that hollowed out music and ebook owners: when the viewing app works on any device, exclusive control of content stops conferring device lock-in or switching costs on the distributor.
Second-order effects
- Platforms respond by buying distribution advantages instead of content moats — Apple's subscription push was explicitly about incremental revenue, churn reduction, and curation-as-brand rather than owning hit shows, while Spotify courts video creators with seven-figure offers to replicate YouTube's supply side.
Third-order effects
- If the music-and-ebooks pattern holds for TV, the industry restructures around platform gatekeepers who monetize attention and data, with content owners reduced to suppliers competing on price — the same first-party-data logic behind publishers building their own ad stacks after Apple's tracking changes (Zynga's response to ATT).
The trend: Content's strategic value to tech companies decays as cross-platform software erodes distribution lock-in, and TV is the next catalog to be commoditized after music and ebooks.