We have exchanges on the internet now that reduce or eliminate the need for a lot of the layers, but as long as people value human interaction and sales people are better at selling than a computer can be, then we will need human layers. - Alex Scoble

Sadly, a lot of people were saying the same thing 10 years ago... - Tudor Bosman from Android

Alex, yes human interaction is valuable but the machine has other advantages - scale, distribution and objectivity. Tudor, agree we were saying that 10 years ago but I think the world moves more slowly than most geeks assume it will.. After all recently have everyday people adopted the internet in a big way to publish etc - Bindu Reddy

A machine is only as objective as those who control it. - Alex Scoble

I think the recent bubble bursting will accelerate the downsizing in the name of efficiency and productivity plus phone mail hell has trained consumers that human interaction is not necessary... - WarLord

Phone system hell has trained consumers that poor human interaction isn't necessary. Companies that serve their customers well will continue to be rewarded. - Alex Scoble

the most successful people don't try and do everything themselves they find others who are successful and work with them, like a celebrity who has their own nutritionist, personal trainer, pr person, etc if you try to do everything yourself you won't get as far, it's better to focus on what you are good at, i mean, if you were hungry would you make your own bread or would you buy it from the store, middle men exist for that reason they save us time and money, outsourcing is a booming industry - Loc

The web has eliminated some, but created others. - LogEx

The two most constant trends in the history of business are disintermediation and reintermediation. As soon as we replace travel agents with sites like Travelocity and Expedia, up pop paid services where experienced users get paid to help you find the bargains. - Stephen Mack

@Loc I don't mean to suggest you should do everything yourself...All I am saying would the world be better if consumers dealt with producers directly. I am suggesting that there would be exchanges which would eliminate middle-men. Expedia is a great example of such a thing. Today you ideally don't call a travel agent to book tickets to NYC. You or your personal assistant would use Expedia. - Bindu Reddy

@Stephen yes but the # of middle men did go down right? There were a lot more travel agents before compared to the experienced ppl who found tickets? - Bindu Reddy

Isn't Expedia just another middle man? - Brian Sullivan

Yes but it is one exchange that eliminates the need for 100s of small "exchanges" primarily because it mostly uses machines to connect travellers to airlines. I am not so sure we can eliminate exchanges... - Bindu Reddy

Bindu, yes, but your original post said "eliminate." :) - Stephen Mack from iPhone

So it it just a more efficient centralized middle man? There will always be a need to aggregate information, services and products. The web makes it more efficient in some ways but not fundamentally different. - Brian Sullivan

We'll always have middlemen. What they look like might change, but we'll always have them. And some of them will -always- be lawyers and agents. They represent a class of middlemen that is necessary due to expertise. - Soup

If everyone is somewhere on the circumference of the circle, and none are at the center, then in effect there are no middlemen (or to look at it another way: everyone is a middleman to a degree). Will the network ever decentralize that completely? Don't know. - Micah Wittman

Also, exchanges are not necessarily preferred even if they are more efficient, particularly from the consumer point of view. Exchanges may excel at anti-consumer behaviors such as filtering results to benefit certain organizations, or maximizing pricing (e.g., airlines). - LogEx

When consumers talk to producers (or those paid on commission) the consumer needs to know as much as they can about the product or risk being grossly oversold. In the case of things like houses, it is almost never a good idea to only look into it yourself. Hell, most people don't even know why granite is the "in" thing. Going to a middle-man gets you years of experience and knowledge on your side. - Heather

Stephen Mack - sure...I guess I ought to append that :) - Bindu Reddy

Heather, I agree that the consumer needs to know a lot of things before making a decision. The exchange technically is supposed to give that kind of information. take real estate for example - Red Fin gives you data like - how many days in the market, average cost of price sold in your area etc. In many cases the "experienced agents' are looking up the same kind of information from similar sources. That said I am not discounting all experience in every industry. - Bindu Reddy

if you are subject matter expert why have a middle man. if you only know enough to get your self in trouble a middle man will save you from some unknown *risks*. The worst things is when I educate someone *Middle man*, and than they decide they don`t need me because know they Know. - Robert Higgins

Some middle men are there for efficiency, such as your local grocery store. It's better and cheaper for us all for them to bring all the different items we need in one spot until we need them. As oppose to us needing to go out to the country to pick up milk, fresh produce etc. - Dario Gomez