fazzel - not being lyrra, i can't answer for her, but for me independent means just that.  as in "autonomous, free."  basically, sites that are not brokerages.  renderosity, 3dcommune, runtimedna, poserpros, daz3d, renderotica, animotions, etc. are all brokerages that take a significant part of the cost of a product and conterin return for great real estate (well trafficked areas), support and infrastructure (servers, credit card processing, etc.), and in some cases quality assurance testing and marketing.  often a good deal.  but independent stores allow artists direct access to customers, creative freedom (no turning a product down because it doesn't fit the brokerage's image or theme of the moment), all of the credit and 100% of the profits.  i mention all of the credit because i've seen countless images that credit a product as by daz3d, when it's not even a daz original, it's an all out p.a. product.  each case has it's pros and cons. 

i'm not sure how content paradise fits into this.   they aggragate both brokerages and independents, but if they were simply a brokerage, i don't think (though only he and sanctumartkitty know) sanctum art would have gone there after leaving daz3d.