"disintermediation" is defined as using the Internet "to remove the middleman", a concept which fuelled the dot com bubble as it promised to do away with the expense and inefficiencies of traditional (terrestrial) retail channels. Think Amazon.com.
But the term "disintermediation" has also been used to describe the orchestrated displacement of bank tellers in favor of banking machines. It would seem that this latter usage is incorrect, not only because bank machines (ATMs) are not web-based, but also because the motivation for this displacement is not to reduce costs for customers (as in the case of the Internet model) but rather to increase profits for the service provider.
If ATMs are not an example of "disintermediation" (as this analysis suggests), what is the proper term to describe this strategy of getting customers to do work traditionally performed by the service provider at its own expense?
to remove the middleman
Seeing neither connotation of accruing benefit either to the consumer or to the supplier nor connotation of using the Web in the term disintermediation I don't see any problem in using the term to describe ATMs or any other method eliminating the middle man.
Funny you should mention that. Right before I went to sleep last night I read in Mrs. Byrne:
disantidisestablishmentarianism
...and that's a double dis.
Edit: I was mistaken. Sorry, folks. The word wasn't a double-dis at all. Whatever the antidisestablishmentarianism word was with one more prefix has gone with the wind. I'll check through Bryne today and see whether I can find the other too-long word.
By the way, Amazon is now offering a new edition of Bryne with a different cover. Don't know whether any changes have been made to the text. Probably not.
Second edit: Well, here's one, but it's not the one I read last night: ultraantidisestablishmentarianism
Third edit: Still can't find the word and I flipped through all the pages. But did find this slang term for being "one against dissection":
antidisecestablishmentarian
Note to Musick: Because I wrote the word "disantidisestablishmentarianism"--does that now make it a bonafide word one hour into its existence?
no connotation of using the Web in the term disintermediation
Thanks, Faldage. Your argument makes sense to me. But ATMs are a boon to banks (and perhaps, inadvertently, to their customers as well) because they free up life-and-blood tellers who have to be trained and salaried and enrolled in profit-draining benefit plans.
The Internet model was driven from the opposite end of the equation as dot coms like Amazon reasoned that customers would abandon traditional retail channels if they could save time and money ordering for themselves online. This was a reprise of the catalogue sales model pioneered by Sears Roebuck a century ago but that model has not been described as "disintermediation" (as far as I know) and the term only came into being in the Internet era.
Dis is the way things are nowadaze.
I think your dis-cussion is more interesting than mine, Wordwind. Therefore I will disintermediate myself.
i remember seeing an IMAX film (i think it was "To Fly") and the narrator made the point that we often meaure distance in time "its just 5 minutes from here" or "its a twelve hour drive" -- and in the past 200 years things have accelerated. Californina was a six month trip from th east coast before the US civil war. now, door to door, its 6 hour!
and the acceleration of travel is just one area of acceleration.
we are no longer content to go to a tailors, be fitted, and have custom made clothing provided in 6 weeks. we would much rather go to a department store and get a ready made article, that doesn't always fit perfectly, but is good enough, NOW!
changing the levels of intermediaries make my percieved time to do the transactions seem shorter.
Now, i drive for 30 minutes or 40, or 50, to get to a mall, where i need to go from store to store, looking for what it is that i want, and trying to find something ready made that meets my needs.. and i might repeat the same action 3 or 3 or 4 times before i am satisfied with the product..
but very frustrating is finding something that is almost right, the right style, with all the features i want, but in the wrong color or the wrong size, and now i have to find a sales clerk, and wait for the clerk to check the stock to see if any are available but not on the selling floor, and if not, to call an other store, and have someone there check the stock... if i could go to a terminal, and check for myself, and i would be so much happier.. do i want to be sales clerk? or a stock boy? no. but i also don't want to be dependant on the sales clerk, stock boy and all the other intermediaries. I have found what i want.. i want it now.
studies show, that long lines at check out cause customer to abandon purchaces and walk out. the same acceleration that has me in California in 6 hours, has created in me a desire to get out and get on with my life faster.
i am actually very conscious of this, and i try to fight it. (at least to the point of not getting annoyed by delays.)
Dear Wordminstrel--
What I brought up is just a typical tangent!
Dis- is an interesting prefix. It's like cancelling out everything you're about to say before you say it.
Best regards,
WW
Note to Musick: Because I wrote the word "disantidisestablishmentarianism"--does that now make it a bonafide word one hour into its existence?It took less time than that...
... If you choose to use it to get across a meaning which you understand and personally don't have or don't like the another word(s) to describe *it... yes, it is. I'm not gonna say I'll ever use it or that you won't be shunned to the depths of hell (by someone other than me) for doing so - It may not be the most thrifty of words, it may not be the easiest to pronounce, and it may not be in the OED or even English for that matter, but these are hardly requirements for being a word. [opening up Pandora's box - e]
A culture of one is as valuable as a culture of a million. I accept that you speak Wordwindeese the best on the planet.
pseudoantidisestablishmentarianism - the phony opposition to the withdrawal of state support from an established church
:^P
oh, and musik? you are pseudoantidispansemihemidemipandorical.
In the words of Jackie Gleason:
"Ha-mi-na ha-mi-na ha-mi-na...."
-----------------
tsuwm - Is that "A phony opposition to dividing the worlds' evils into 64 parts for distribution to its devil's advocates"?
either that or you gots dis'pan hands.
Nah. Disintermediation is used when you and your relatives can't decide whether to dig up Grandpappy for an autopsy so you ask a neutral third party to listen to both sides and make a decision binding on both of you.
Thanks, TEd. I was just working on something along similar lines, but I'm much happier to let the master of the art ply his wares.
Thanks, tsuwm. That the word I was looking for today.
Dis- is an interesting prefix. It's like cancelling out everything you're about to say before you say it.I'd discourage (and perhaps entirely dissuade you from) such a negative perspective, WW.
Edit: I meant to say that I think
disintermediation, taken to mean simply "the process of cutting out the (middle)man/men", is a useful word. It stands distinct from empowering the consumer, which may be the avowed aim of the process.
that model has not been described as "disintermediation"
It's interesting that we can have something and not come up with a special word for it for many years. It's certainly not unknown for a word to be coined with one idea in mind and then have the public in general use it in a different sense. Whether disintermediation will stay with us us up to future history to judge. During the era of inkhorn terms many words were coined, about 10% of which stayed with the language.
In a related question, how long was it between the invention of the tin can and the invention of the can opener?
Here's our past mention of this word, and hey--this makes twice today that I've gotten to read Alex talking about somebody being hit with a sock full of wet mud!
http://wordsmith.org/board/showflat.pl?Cat=&Board=miscellany&Number=33934
how long was it between the invention of the tin can and the invention of the can opener?
The tin can was invented by Peter Durand in 1810, while the first can opener was patented by Ezra Waterbury in 1858. An easy-to-use household can opener was patented by William Lyman in 1870.
The tin can was invented by Peter Durand in 1810,
Uh-huh.
while the first can opener was patented by Ezra Waterbury in 1858.
Okay. So what happened to the cans in the intervening 52 years?
tin can-- the first cans were tin, which is a rather soft metal you could just stick a knife in, and rip open a jagged edge.
tin cans also bulged, and split and leaked if not properly sealed, and all instructions for canned food say don't eat the contents if the can has bulged, or split or leaked. but now days the cans are made out of light weight steel, and canning is so industrialied, there hasn't been a case of food poisoning or botillism in ages, in commercially canned food.
early tin cans where sealed with a lead solder, and poorly made tin cans could and did cause lead poisoning. (especially with high acid foods)
there is a famous case of one of the last british explorers looking for the "northwest passage" an artic route from atlantic to pacific, the officers food stores were tinned goods, the common sailors got hardtack and dried fish and other 'old time' foods. over time, all the officers started exhibitting evidence of lead poisoning, including irrational thinking.
Oh joy, to be frozen into a ice pack north of Hudson bay, and your commanders are going crazy!--i forget the commanders name, but googling 'northwest passage' i expect would find it
Botulism, most likely.
Oath, Junior Ergot!
Okay. So what happened to the cans in the intervening 52 [sic] years?
People used what was at hand to open them; knives and other hand tools, usually. It was messy and inconvenient, and I don't believe that canned foods were really successful until improvements were made, including the invention of can openers.