4 ms·

What's wrong with middle men? They provide a service, too. Eg your bank genuinely helps with finance and transfers compared to transacting directly on a block

by eru 8mo ago

What's wrong with middle men? They provide a service, too. Eg your bank genuinely helps with finance and transfers compared to transacting directly on a blockchain or snail mailing cash around. > I think people just want someone else to take care of their shit. Yes, division of labour!

ragebol 8mo ago
Nothing wrong with middle men per se, but problems do arise when we all rely on the same middleman: those become way too powerful and can do nasty things. By that time, no one can do without the nasty middle man as we have forgotten or never learned the skills to fend for ourselves and are thus beholden to the nasty middle man. Network effect compounds this
- eru 8mo ago
  As long as you have plenty of competing middle men, like we do for eg social networks in the real world, it seems all fine. Remember: Facebook is for grandparents, not where the cool kids hang out.
  - voidUpdate 8mo ago
    Where do the cool kids hang out?
    - jpease 8mo ago
      In a cool club on the other side of town, where the real cool kids go to sit around and talk bad about the other kids. Yeah, it's a real cool club and you're not part of it.
      - voidUpdate 8mo ago
        That's ok, I dont really like clubs. Too many people
    - eru 8mo ago
      A while ago it was Instagram or perhaps tiktok? However, take the fact that I have heard of these places as strong evidence that they are no longer cool.
Gagarin1917 8mo ago
[flagged]
neya 8mo ago
> What's wrong with middle men? Purely on a philosophical point of view and depending on where you live, they do nothing but increase the costs without adding value. For example, realtors made sense back in the day when there was no internet. But, what value does a real estate agent add in 2026? An owner can list their apartment/house directly online. The buyer and search, find and contact the owner directly, a lot of times even for free (FB Marketplace, WhatsApp groups, etc.). The most common argument is - "when things go wrong, the agent will take on the liability for the listing", but that is rarely the case in real life (again, may vary greatly depending on where you live). In most of Asia, this is not the case at all. They take their nice fat commission and wash their hands off later, not even picking up your calls most of the time when there is an issue. So what do agents do now? They hoard information instead. They advertise good listings, but to talk to the owner you will need to engage (and pay them) first. Real estate agents are just one. Car dealerships rank right on the second in my list. We don't need more agents. We need democratized access to information.
- Juliate 8mo ago
  I disagree. I do not care about the details of a ton of stuff. I do not even understand them. On the other hand, I do care about people that are knowledgeable of these details, specialized, and trust to handle them for me for a fee. That’s true of banking, realting, health, security, building, manufacturing of everything I use (or almost). That doesn’t prevent me from vaguely understanding the principles and some bits. And that saved me a ton of time and worry. But for the few times one agent does not work up to his promises. I am 49, I have dealt enough with try to do all by myself, and I do appreciate and rely onto middlemen way earlier now.
  - eru 8mo ago
    Yes. The crucial bit is that there are plenty of competing middle men you can choose from (and are also allowed to do it yourself, where possible).
  - neya 8mo ago
    This is fine and works for small ticket items. But in some cases, you will end up paying upto 50% of the ticket value. Eg. Realtors in some countries charge 50% of the transaction value - while the value they provide doesn't scale with transaction amount. Usually, a $200,000 house and a $2,000,000 house require the same amount of paper work (of course, depends on where you live, etc).
danlitt 8mo ago
There is in fact nothing wrong with a middle man who provides a service, as long as their power over you is limited to the provision of the service. The "tech platforms" are not middle men in this sense. They don't just provide a service, they also own aspects of your personal life.

by eru 8mo ago

ragebol 8mo ago

Nothing wrong with middle men per se, but problems do arise when we all rely on the same middleman: those become way too powerful and can do nasty things. By that time, no one can do without the nasty middle man as we have forgotten or never learned the skills to fend for ourselves and are thus beholden to the nasty middle man. Network effect compounds this

eru 8mo ago
As long as you have plenty of competing middle men, like we do for eg social networks in the real world, it seems all fine. Remember: Facebook is for grandparents, not where the cool kids hang out.
- voidUpdate 8mo ago
  Where do the cool kids hang out?
  - jpease 8mo ago
    In a cool club on the other side of town, where the real cool kids go to sit around and talk bad about the other kids. Yeah, it's a real cool club and you're not part of it.
    - voidUpdate 8mo ago
      That's ok, I dont really like clubs. Too many people
  - eru 8mo ago
    A while ago it was Instagram or perhaps tiktok? However, take the fact that I have heard of these places as strong evidence that they are no longer cool.

Gagarin1917 8mo ago

[flagged]

neya 8mo ago

> What's wrong with middle men? Purely on a philosophical point of view and depending on where you live, they do nothing but increase the costs without adding value. For example, realtors made sense back in the day when there was no internet. But, what value does a real estate agent add in 2026? An owner can list their apartment/house directly online. The buyer and search, find and contact the owner directly, a lot of times even for free (FB Marketplace, WhatsApp groups, etc.). The most common argument is - "when things go wrong, the agent will take on the liability for the listing", but that is rarely the case in real life (again, may vary greatly depending on where you live). In most of Asia, this is not the case at all. They take their nice fat commission and wash their hands off later, not even picking up your calls most of the time when there is an issue. So what do agents do now? They hoard information instead. They advertise good listings, but to talk to the owner you will need to engage (and pay them) first. Real estate agents are just one. Car dealerships rank right on the second in my list. We don't need more agents. We need democratized access to information.

Juliate 8mo ago
I disagree. I do not care about the details of a ton of stuff. I do not even understand them. On the other hand, I do care about people that are knowledgeable of these details, specialized, and trust to handle them for me for a fee. That’s true of banking, realting, health, security, building, manufacturing of everything I use (or almost). That doesn’t prevent me from vaguely understanding the principles and some bits. And that saved me a ton of time and worry. But for the few times one agent does not work up to his promises. I am 49, I have dealt enough with try to do all by myself, and I do appreciate and rely onto middlemen way earlier now.
- eru 8mo ago
  Yes. The crucial bit is that there are plenty of competing middle men you can choose from (and are also allowed to do it yourself, where possible).
- neya 8mo ago
  This is fine and works for small ticket items. But in some cases, you will end up paying upto 50% of the ticket value. Eg. Realtors in some countries charge 50% of the transaction value - while the value they provide doesn't scale with transaction amount. Usually, a $200,000 house and a $2,000,000 house require the same amount of paper work (of course, depends on where you live, etc).

danlitt 8mo ago

There is in fact nothing wrong with a middle man who provides a service, as long as their power over you is limited to the provision of the service. The "tech platforms" are not middle men in this sense. They don't just provide a service, they also own aspects of your personal life.