By Futurist Thomas Frey
You buy a product online for $100. The manufacturer sells it to the distributor for $35. The distributor sells it to the wholesaler for $50. The wholesaler sells it to the retailer for $70. The retailer sells it to you for $100. At each step, someone takes a cut for moving the product from one place to another—often without adding any meaningful value.
This is the supply chain, and AI analysis is revealing that it has evolved into something far more parasitic than most people realize. What should be a relatively efficient system for moving goods from manufacturers to consumers has become a multi-layered extraction economy where middlemen have inserted themselves at every possible point, each taking their percentage while making the entire system slower, more expensive, and less transparent.
The awakening in supply chain and logistics isn’t about the necessity of distribution—goods do need to move from factories to customers. It’s about revealing how many unnecessary intermediaries have positioned themselves in that flow, how much they’re extracting, and how technology could eliminate most of them while delivering better service at a fraction of the cost.
Continue reading… “The Awakening Series Part 8: Supply Chain and Logistics—The Hidden Middleman Economy”