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"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?
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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.
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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?
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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.
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I think your dis-cussion is more interesting than mine, Wordwind. Therefore I will disintermediate myself. 
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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.)
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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
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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.
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pseudoantidisestablishmentarianism - the phony opposition to the withdrawal of state support from an established church
:^P
oh, and musik? you are pseudoantidispansemihemidemipandorical.
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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"?
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