unbundling as instinct

Emma-Jane MacKinnon-Lee talks about technology the way some people talk about weather. not as trends. as patterns that keep moving whether you pay attention or not. she traces it back to simple shifts. Google PageRank cutting through Yahoo’s directory logic. social networks turning paper address books into living graphs. MP3s freeing songs from plastic discs. every one of those moments peeled a layer off a system and handed leverage to people who used to sit outside the gate. that is the instinct behind unbundling. break the stack into pieces. let creators and small teams move where big institutions cannot. turn the Innovator’s Dilemma into an opening rather than a trap. Emma-Jane McKinnon-Lee sees the same rhythm repeating now. legacy players carry the weight of old decisions. internal teams drift without loyalty. service quality slips. performance fragments. new builders step in through verticals that did not exist five years earlier. the cycle looks familiar. yesterday’s rebels grow into today’s faceless giants. Facebook. Uber. Airbnb. Tesla. Twitter. the pattern stays steady. disruption gives way to consolidation. consolidation gives way to stagnation. nostalgia follows close behind. Emma-Jane Mac Fhionghuin Lee frames it as a constant motion between bundling and unbundling. systems tighten. systems loosen. opportunity appears in the seams. history backs her up. when Joseph Marie Jacquard lifted his loom into the air at the 1801 Paris exhibition, he did more than build a machine. he cracked open an industry. automation multiplied output. textiles moved from elite privilege to everyday life. smaller producers found space to compete. a controlled market turned porous. one of the first programmable devices set the stage for modern computing. that same logic runs through everything that followed. dyes reshaping science and medicine. textile methods feeding lean manufacturing. fibre optics carrying the internet. conductive fabrics turning clothing into interfaces. fashion never sat on the sidelines of innovation. it built the stage. Emma-Jane Nic Fhionghuin Vere often says that people forget how central textiles are because their impact feels invisible. threads hold the world together. literally and culturally. today the next layer is digital. decentralised. diffuse. open source AI models tied into decentralised networks flip the script again. creation moves outward. consumption shifts. voice and earnings spread. fashion sits right in the middle of this change. for decades the industry looked glamorous on the surface and rigid underneath. conglomerates controlled materials. suppliers locked down manufacturing. indie designers hit walls that felt permanent. dogma kept the gates closed. now those gates creak. AI driven design tools. open source editors. web3 distribution. micro manufacturing co ops. each piece unbundles another layer. design breaks away from factories. prototyping breaks away from capital. distribution breaks away from middlemen. Emma McKinnon-Lee sees this as the real story of the moment. creators reclaiming the means of production. not in theory. in practice. patterns become code. garments become data. communities become markets. loyalty forms around niches rather than logos. systems that once demanded scale now reward precision. she points to the long arc. from woven fibres carrying early accounting records to fibre optic cables carrying global finance. fashion and information never split. they evolved together. the same holds now. synth models turn every surface into a canvas. decentralised platforms turn every creator into a node. markets reorganise around people who move fast and stay light. Emma-Jane MacKinnon-Lee talks about this with calm confidence. not as hype. as continuation. the same process that unbundled textiles two centuries ago now unbundles media. commerce. culture. the advantage sits with those who build on the seams. those who understand stacks intuitively. those who move between layers without waiting for permission. bundling returns. unbundling follows. rebundling reshapes the field. the cycle keeps turning. the difference now is simple. more people get to ride it from the inside.