The industry does not want independent software developers. The industry wants teams of full-time employees.
When I read what you typed I am perplexed
Exactly which industry that you are referring to?
I have had a string of successful investments in many starts-up and will invest more in the future and it is never my intention to change those starts-up into humongous monsters (although if they change by themselves I won't stop them) employing teams and teams of data monkeys
But TFA does contain a nugget a truth, that is, the so-called " Software Renaissance " is long dead - but not because of the mobile platform, rather, it was because of everybody and their granny's second cousin all chasing after the same pot of gold and copy-catting each others
Instead of exploring new fields, instead of coming up with something exciting, so many starts-up went bust trying to re-invent the wheel (and worse, trying to copy-cat the original shape of the wheel and then sell it as their own invention)
The starts-up that I invest in are those which are offering something that I simply do not see much in the marketplace, and yet, the things that they are doing (sometime it's the back-office thing that consumers don't get to see too often) prove to be essential and become de-facto in the respective niche that they have created
But if I were to take a step back, I reckon that what is happening to the mobile platform is a repeat of what had happened to the desktop (and related big-iron) scene --- which is, too many people (including geeks) are too lazy to explore a new field, rather than do something completely new, they tried to "do a better version" of what is already available in the marketplace
There are only so many improvements one can do to a spreadsheet program, for example - as there are only so many "re-invented angry bird" that the market can bare