> 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.

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

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