That's a fair response, but I'm certain there's more to it than that. I think the default obvious-reason-that-isn't-formally-said-out-loud is that they can get more direct access to user information, which may be more difficult to come by in using a third party. But I think there's something larger at play here too. As in, larger beyond Mad Cave. And this may seem at odds with evidence from the announcement back in February that Dark Horse is shuttering their home-grown digital platform, but there are different elements in the mix there.
The bigger thing that I think Mad Cave is responding to is a growing trend in not trusting larger companies. With billionaire owners making more proactive in making other people's lives actively worse in their pursuit of power, I think people are reacting by trying to migrate themselves away from them. I've been seeing more and more stories of people trying to de-Googlify themselves by cancelling Gmail and YouTube accounts, and using browsers other than Chrome. Target has seen declining foot traffic in their stores for months now. I've seen historically non-geek people replacing Windows machines with Linux. Now, admittedly, this is extremely anecdotal and there is no doubt at least some level of confirmation bias on my part here, but I believe it's the start of a trend where people are no longer willing to sacrifice their data to the highest bidder for the sake of convenience.
I suspect we'll see more consumers looking to small-size their connections, and focus more on "artisian" efforts. Send their hard-earned money to smaller companies that aren't run by billionaires trying to dismantle democracy just so they can have even more money they can't even spend. (If Jeff Bezos cut his income to zero, it would still take him 548 years to spend all his already-accumulated money if he spent a million dollars every day!) I don't think this will be everybody, to be sure, but I think that we'll see more people will express an interest in having a more direct connection between themselves and the comics they buy and read.
Now whether or not this is actually financially or technologically viable for any given publisher is another matter. That, I would guess, is why Dark Horse is dropping their platform -- Embracer Group who purchased them a couple years ago is actively trying to cut off not-profitable-enough venues like their digital platform and, more recently annnounced, TFAW. (This is more-or-less standard practice for investment groups like Embracer. It's usually an indication that they're hoping to sell off the company at a profit in a couple years.) Other smaller publishers won't have the option to set up their own digital platform and will likely to set up some partnerships with other small publishers. But I suspect we'll see a number of larger-than-just-one-or-two-people publishers make some effort over the next couple years to have some form of dedicated, self-owned space to buy their books digitally. That's not something that's going to pop up quickly -- Mad Cave has likely been working their effort for a while now -- but once the ball starts rolling, I think we'll see more and more publishers take a similar approach.
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