Disintermediation did happen. I can reach my fans directly. Many independent shops have their own website. But disintermediation doesn’t mean guaranteed customers, just that the independent shop owner doesn’t have to pay $1000 in rent every month to sell.
Disintermediation is the cellist being able to sell on iTunes for $0 to anyone in the world, compared to having to ink a record deal and get lucky just to be in record stores.
>Disintermediation did happen. I can reach my fans directly. Many independent shops have their own website. But disintermediation doesn’t mean guaranteed customers, just that the independent shop owner doesn’t have to pay $1000 in rent every month to sell.
What we wanted to see was people buying 90% of the time from smaller shops, directly from producer websites, direct artists sites, and so on.
Instead, the intermediation is just what happens the 10% of the time, which is probably even worse than what happened pre-internet (when e.g. music fans in England would get most of their music from indies, not from Spotify and co).
Disintermediation is the cellist being able to sell on iTunes for $0 to anyone in the world, compared to having to ink a record deal and get lucky just to be in record stores.