Society moves in waves. It always starts with lots of separate things. Then they get bundled. After a while, more and more people start to realize that the bundled solution is too bloated and not specific enough for their needs. This is when an unbundling happens.

Unbundlings always represent a multitude of business opportunities. Below I’ll list several examples of unbundlings that have happened in the past, some that are happening right now, and a few speculations on what might be unbundled next.

While going through the following examples, ask yourself: What aspect hasn’t been unbundled yet? What could be unbundled in a better way?

The Unix Unbundling

• grep → Google,
• rsync → Dropbox,
• man → Stack Overflow,
• cron → IFTTT
• finger → Social Media

(Source: https://twitter.com/cdixon/status/505118160811728896)

The Craigslist Unbundling

(Source: https://thegongshow.tumblr.com/post/345941486/the-spawn-of-craigslist-like-most-vcs-that-focus)

(Source: https://latecheckout.substack.com/p/the-guide-to-unbundling-reddit)

The Spreadsheet Unbundling

(Source: https://foundationinc.co/lab/the-saas-opportunity-of-unbundling-excel/)

The Unbundling of Hippie Culture

• psychedelics → weed startups
• communes → coliving
• hippie trail → digital nomads
• hippie food → organic food, veganism
• spirituality → mindfulness apps
• free love → Tinder

(Also take note how Hippie culture bundled lots of different things that existed previously within certain subcultures.)

The Unbundling of Reddit

• r/startups → IndieHackers
• r/medicine → Doximity
• r/Beauty -> Supergreat
• r/funny → 9gag
• r/sports → StadiumLive
• r/Streamers → Pipeline.gg
• r/insert city → Nextdoor
• r/books → Goodreads
• r/digitalnomad → Nomadlist
• r/fitness → Fitocracy
• r/design → Designer News
• r/GrowthHacking → GrowthHackers.com

(Source: https://latecheckout.substack.com/p/the-guide-to-unbundling-reddit and https://blog.alexshye.com/2013/08/15/the-unbundling-of-craigslist-and-reddit/)

The Unbundling of Universities

• Community → PhysicsForums, Discord Servers,
• Content → Udemy, Masterclass
• Credentials → Coursera, edX
• Network → Twitter, Clubhouse, LinkedIn
• Support → StackExchange
• Access to Books → Scribd, Libgen
• Learning Spaces → https://www.focusmate.com/
• Accountability → ???

The Unbundling of Wordpress

• Publishing → Medium, Ghost
• Ecommerce Plugins → Shopify
• Buddypress → Tribe.so
• Membership Plugins → Mighty Networks, Ghost
• Contact Form Plugins → Typeform
• Comments → Disqus

The Unbundling of Webhosting

• Database → Cloud Firestore, FaunaDB
• Authentication → Auth0
• Content Delivery → Cloudflare, Netlify
• Version Control → Github, Gitlab, Bitbucket
• Email → Mailchimp, ConvertKit

What’s Next?

Now that we have some understanding of how unbundlings look like in practice, it’s time to ask: what’s the next big thing that will get unbundled?

A few suggestions:

• Twitter? (Especially its DM function, e.g., along the lines of what Earn.com tried. But also the “News-Feed” aspect, the “Life-Updates” aspect, the RSS-Feed aspect, etc.)
• Ebay? Amazon? (See Etsy, Shopify)
• Offices? (See Slack, Zoom, Focusmate, WIP.chat)

I’d love to hear on Twitter what unbundlings you’ve observed in the past and which you predict for the future!