TechCrunch writes, The 20th century was owned and operated by middle men. Industry began as the creation of something for which would be traded other goods, services, or cash. As production centralized, distribution (as always) rose to close the distance between the product and the consumer. Facilitating consumption became a business unto itself: printing, shipping, packaging, and all the rest. A respectable, powerful, and necessary business. More recently, when certain products became capable of being distributed without this mighty infrastructure, that business ceased to become necessary, and correspondingly...