If there’s one field that would seem ripe for consolidation, it’s the one occupied by sites likes Business Insider, Mashable and The Verge. After years of investment by venture capitalists, wealthy families and media companies, there’s an overabundance of these digital quasi-news and entertainment sites. Meaningful profits, though, still seem far off. A shakeout seems inevitable.

That might imply Vox Media’s recent acquisition of Re/code, like the recent shuttering of Gigaom, is a harbinger of just such an upheaval. There’s only one problem.