Eliminating the middleman is not the point. Avoiding the negative consequences of having a middleman is the point, and eliminating the middleman is merely a means to that end. If you can be a middleman without (or with fewer of) those negative consequences, then you're working toward the same goal.
You're splitting hairs. Louis CK's special raked in more than a million dollars. The website cost him about 30k to produce. iTunes would have sucked up TEN TIMES that.
I did not say that iTunes was the answer. I said that a startup that offers inexpensive distribution services to entertainers and artists using this low-price, no-DRM model could be the answer.
I really like this new model but it got me thinking about how hard it's going to be for Aziz to push his content to different types of media. Traditionally the labels would handle that (usually incompetently) but for a startup to focus on this niche would be awesome.
