Vox's Emily Stewart talks with Kathryn Judge, professor at Columbia Law School and author of the new book Direct: The Rise of Middlemen and the Power of Going to the Source. They discuss how middlemen — which include real estate agents, stock brokers, but also Amazon and Walmart — came to assume such an outsized role in our economy, the pros and cons of middlemen in different market contexts, why Prof. Judge sees a fundamental difference between Etsy and Amazon, and how we consumers can change how we decide what to buy in order to help push the economy in a radically different direction.
Host: Emily Stewart (@EmilyStewartM), senior correspondent, Vox
Guests: Kathryn Judge (@ProfKateJudge), Harvey J. Goldschmid Professor of Law, Columbia University; author
References: 


Direct: The Rise of the Middleman Economy and the Power of Going to the Source by Kathryn Judge (Harper Business; 2022)


"So Much for Cutting Out the Middleman" by Kathryn Judge (The Atlantic; June 9)


"What Is Web3?" by Thomas Stackpole (Harvard Business Review; May 10)


"The awful American consumer" by Emily Stewart (Vox; Apr. 7)


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This episode was made by: 


Producer: Erikk Geannikis


Editor: Amy Drozdowska


Engineer: Patrick Boyd


Deputy Editorial Director, Vox Talk: Amber Hall


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