Some things we used to do for free, without the need for a middle-person:

• Talk to each other on the way home from school
• Eat dinner together
• Drink water
• Pay for stuff
• Enjoy a view of the Thames from the Festival Hall
• Hail a cab
• Go on a date

In some cases a middle-person can add tremendous value – mediating a dispute instead of going to court for example.

All too often though, that new thing we’re all dying to try is just a mechanism for taking a cut of the value others have created.