With health insurance completely out of control, many people are beginning to question why we even need a “middle man” in the process of health care.  If I want antibiotics, why do I need a prescription for it?     Before the internet, many people used travel agents or other intermediaries to purchase plane tickets but as soon as the internet came, airlines began selling direct and cutting out the “middle man” from service provider to consumer.   While places like Expedia exist they’re more “middle computers” than “middle men” in the process.

With the auto industry closing down thousands of dealerships, people are beginning to wonder why they just can’t order a car online and have it delivered as well; why do we need a middle man? Unfortunately, most states passed laws requiring a local dealer presence for fear that the state(s) would lose precious property and sales tax revenue.    It would seem that the states are losing those dealerships property & sales revenue anyway because the model is no longer supported.

The RIAA has long thought of itself as the necessary “middle man” in the music business to help promote artists and distribute music but iTunes has quickly become the worlds largest music seller.  And although iTunes is in a sense a “middle man” the efficiency of their operation is a thousand fold that of the RIAA.    ITunes has the ability to connect known and unknown artists directly with the consumer.

I wrote about bookstores being an obsolete model as well as more and more people expect books to be delivered or available faster and more efficiently.   Why wait days or weeks to get a book through the mail when it can be transmitted digitally?

But it doesn’t stop there, people are getting tired of paying real estate agents 6% and the variety of middle man fingers in the pot (title companies, appraisers, etc) so organizations like Redfin and Zillow are replacing hordes of “middle men” taking a cut.

People are also questioning the need for Wall Street “pros” that didn’t do a damn thing to protect their fortunes during the financial crisis.  During the golden age before the internet, brokers once charged $100 per trade or more but the vast majority were wiped out with electronic trading.   Today, investment “professionals” and mutual funds charge ridiculous fees for doing basically nothing.   People are abandoning the stock market, 401ks, and Wall Street altogether in favor of managing their own money.

While workers long feared replacement by robots, it seems that computers are replacing hordes of “middle men” in almost every industry across sectors.  On the surface it looks like a good thing but I wonder….