I see Mr. Hewitt has created quite the little bit of a furor over his post yesterday with his post about middle men. Everyone from Ian Betteridge at Technovia, Dare Obasanjo, and James Robertson from Smalltalk Tidbits, Industry Rants had a go at Joe at some point today.

Interestingly enough the latter two decided to take Joe to task of what they consider to be a tad bit of hypocrisy considering that Joe works for Facebook. Ian on the other hand stuck to the topic by pointing out that Joe was wrong on the count of the demise of the middle man.

As much as I want to come to the defense of Joe I am trying to figure out why I get a sense of deja vu when reading his post. Oh wait, I know why – because I wrote much the same argument five days prior.

The salient point from Joe’s post I think is this part

That’s not to say there is no value to middle men. Middle men exist to reduce the cost of getting a product from A to B, and as long as that cost is significant, they will be useful. However, the moment the middle man monopolizes the means of distribution, he becomes a gatekeeper, and creators can be made to fail not by the merits and popularity of their products, but by the whims and short-term interests of the gatekeeper.

Now as I wrote waayyyy back on the 8th – and to counter Ian’s point to a certain extent

As we discover new and better ways to bypass these dying middlemen and find a common ground with the content producers, the media creators, the product makers, we all will benefit and probably in ways we might not even grasp yet.

It’s no wonder the middlemen are scared shitless.

Where I think Ian is missing the point is that up until the last few years there was only one place for musicians to go to in order to make a serious living. There was only one place that writers could go, whether they be journalists or book authors, in order to make a serious living.

That has changed and yes I agree with Ian that Amazon and iTunes are a new breed of middle men but the important distinction between then and now is that musicians, authors, writers, and even video entertainment creators do not have to get down on hand and knee to the all power middle man in order to make a living.

Oh and yes Dare and James the irony isn’t missed at all.