Yesterday we looked at how Media has been disintermediated and transformed during the past 30 years. Today we look at two industries that are on the threshold of some degree of disintermediation. Using the four part definition of the term , it is clear that real estate and insurance are going to be reorganized from historically developed structures, transactions, fees and processes.

Real Estate

Real Estate is very interesting. We are going to concentrate on residential real estate for this post, because close to 70% of American families own their own homes. A much lower percentage of …

In the last post on disintermediation , I gave a deeper definition and current meaning to the term:

1. Disintermediation is the removal of the intermediary or entity

2. If the intermediary remains in place, it will be drained of any excess compensation

3. Industries that hold information hostage for financial gain will be disintermediated.

4. The Internet can be the agent of disintermediation of existing distribution channels.

We are living in a 50-60 year era of transformative change. Disintermediation is part of transformation, as it always is in such eras. The most powerful agent of disintermediation today is the Internet …

The “Remember When Gas Was Cheap?”  post on 4/20/06 provoked a lot of response. That post looked back at the rise of gas prices, written from the future perch of 4/20/09.

In that futuristic look back to see how gas went from $3.00 in April, 2006 to the $7.33 price in April, 2009, I wrote of events and consequences during that three year time period.  One such event ‘ocurred’ in October 2007, when, with the price of gas at $4.45, GM announced that it was shutting down the Hummer division because of a drastic fall-off in sales and the refusal …

“The future, what’s that?”

-Belisario, one of a group of hunter-gatherers who left the Columbian jungle to join the modern world

This was the “Quotation of the Day” from yesterday’s New York Times.  It was lifted from the remarkable front page article about the Nukak-Maku and that a group of almost 80 of this Stone Age tribe wandered out of the Amazon jungle, declaring that they were ready to join the modern world.

The Nukak-Maku are clearly unprepared for their new world.  “The Nukak have no concept of money, of property, of the role of government, or even of the existence of a …