Is the end of the middle the end of the middleman? Sounds like a riddle, but whatever the question means the answer appears to be a clear “no”.
We’re all familiar with the concept of the dumb network killing off the value-add of the network operator. (As a by-product the ability to price discriminate network traffic and create artificial scarcity dries up. Cue trillion dollar loss of telco-related market cap.) But the fact that the network operator is no longer a middleman in your communications application doesn’t mean nobody ever acts as a middleman. And to illustrate the point, the high priests of invective at “The Register”: have supplied us with a neat example:
Sloppy businesses fingered by phone recording service
… the Registered Call service give punters the chance to record conversations with calls centres and other “customer help operatives” …
To use the service, punters have to dial the Registered Call number before being connected to whichever business or organisation they are calling. Those receiving the call are played a short message informing them that their conversation is being taped. The calls cost 10p a minute, which is how the company makes its cash.
Once connected, calls are recorded and stored as tamper proof copies for six months.
So this service is a trust intermediary to enable non-repudiation of telephone calls. Whilst I can easily record the conversation myself, to verify that it is a true recording of what actually was said requires another party to be involved.
This example also illustrates the fact that all trust interactions require four parties. The obvious two are the caller and the callee. The transaction itself requires a trusted verifier, as shown above. But, very subtly, the fourth party is a trusted introducer. So you reading this most esteemed journal, and the reputation (ahem) of The Register, makes you more likely to adopt this service than any random service provider that propositions you directly. [Hat tip to Ed Gerck of Network Manifold Associates for teaching me this.] In this case, there are more middlemen in the transaction than there are direct participants!
Hmmm, now if only I could find a way of extracting some cash out of you for this valuable introductory role… In fact, we’ve perfect prototypes for this trusted introducer as a business model in the Amazon Associate and Google AdSense programs. Now all we need to do is generalize it to every link and protocol and watch the Internet collapse in a frenzy of commercial link-whoring …
The take-away is that if you want to have trusted communications, the end of the old middle is just the beginning for the new middlemen.
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