> to make money it helps to insert yourself between people and something they may want or need. this is how pretty much every business works. This might be the

> to make money it helps to insert yourself between people and something they may want or need. this is how pretty much every business works. This might be the rentiers scheme, but that's hardly how any economy works. A bakery hardly inserts itself between the very bread it makes and the client who wants to buy it. Even logistics companies, the epitome of a middleman, delivers critical value. > social media made it possible for anyone(?) to gain a following and so put themselves as a kind of authoritative middle man and act as a conduit for advertisers between people and thing they want I don't think this is true. Marketing is not a middleman. Raising awareness of a product and/or service is not the same thing as making impossible deals possible. Likewise, newspapers from a couple of decades ago were not middlemen in any of the adverts they printed, or is YouTube a middleman in any of the adverts it shoves between videos.