Indie distributors function as R&D arms for conglomerates, pioneering new audiences.

Evidence

Just as Miramax and its ilk developed new audiences with innovative marketing strategies that were eventually funneled into the Disney and Warner empires, distributors like A24 operate as the research and development arms of transnational tech and media companies—though, considering Guggenheim’s colonial and imperial heritage, as well as Apple and Amazon’s reinvention of these practices, it is more accurate to refer to A24’s role as “pioneering” a new audience. — Andrew deWaard, Derivative Media, 284

Categorization

• XREF: The R&D-arm framing parallels how independent labels/studios historically incubated talent for majors — connects to the reader’s infrastructure lens.