The only trend of ending middlemen is that small middlemen are being replaced by large middlemen.

> Middlemen, example Amazon, have never been stronger.

The strength of a middleman can be directly measured by how much they mark up prices. Does amazon really mark up prices more than the brick and mortar retailers it replaced?

You're forgetting Amazon is a "marketplace" and not just a "retail store."

Anyway, I don't think "markup" is very much related to how strong they are. I define "strong" as "how critical for business that service is."

I'm just using Amazon as an example, one that everyone can understand has a massive amount of power.

I think of distributors, not retail stores, to be pretty much the strongest middlemen there is. If you're making a widget are you going to hire someone full time to market your product to individual stores and then hire and maintain a fleet to deliver them? Fuck no you aren't, you're going to call a distributor.

Hmm or how much they can out price competitors, which has largely been amazon approach, further more they keep expanding yo new markets!