We Are In the Middlemen's Business
Everyone who wants to start a business wants to follow the same footstep that the Unicorns of today and the tech companies that are publicly traded or are a part of the S&P 500. One sentence stay key in the mouth of these companies and it is to eliminate the middlemen. Companies like Amazon, Uber, AirBnB, and Amway come with this same goal and even in the prescription drug industry, they are doing the same but they have now become a big middleman as well.
Almost everything now has a middleman even when they are not saying it loud that they are middlemen and we find them everywhere including on YouTube and Instagram because your favorite influencer has also become a middleman who is directing people to a platform because they will get rewarded for it.
Let's take Amazon for instance. If you are to buy a product from them, they are actually not the sellers, they are just providing a marketplace and a distribution service to the customer or better put it a third party distributor who might either the product from China through Alibaba who might have gotten the goods listed on their marketplace by a manufacturer or a wholesaler.
If you are to purchase anything, there is no doubt that between you and the product coming on your table, there were 5 middlemen and if you got the product using the link from an Affiliate, then it makes it 6 middlemen in total and either you like it or not, this people will be paid for their services and the price will reflect on the final cost of the product.
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It isn't product alone that has the middlemen involved, it is also found with services. Large corporations and financial managers like Alphabet, Meta, Charles Schwab and so on are also utilizing middlemen. Even card companies are not just working directly with the banks, they serve as middlemen between the merchant, the buyer, the Issuer, and the card company, and payment services.
While this isn't a big deal since these businesses are making transactions easy and things done, but they are causing a hike in the amount to be paid for services and for products. The reality is that if we decide to create a business that will realistically cut of the middlemen, then we will not be effective when it comes to our activities.
Although, middle men play a significant role in creating awareness to a product and service, they indeed make the price for these things more expensive.