Death by a thousand cuts: why the agency network structure is slo-mo self-destructing

I have always wanted to use the term ‘disintermediated’ in an article. Seems more scholarly than ‘cutting out the middle man’. We all know the everyday examples that are disrupting industries like banking and finance, transportation, property and entertainment, etc.
The advertising industry faces that pressure quite acutely, yet seems to be resisting the change – advertising greats poo poo the impact and importance of data; the process of developing, sourcing, produ