I'm not sure a middle man is needed like this. Can't a company put a job ad on their site, publish the actual salary range, and make the interview process as sh

I'm not sure a middle man is needed like this. Can't a company put a job ad on their site, publish the actual salary range, and make the interview process as short as possible? Standard job boards can help aggregate this. The "solution" to the big problem might be a 10 page PDF (for reasonable fee or free) to engineers on how to play the game to their own advantage. Of course no one really profits big from this enough to keep a startups lights on. But if all developers played the game well it helps everyone, even the few that don't play it (like a vaccine).