Disintermediation – reduction in the use of intermediaries between producers and consumers, for example by investing directly in the securities market rather than through a bank

Disintermediation is mentioned in The Age of the Platform: How Amazon, Apple, Facebook, and Google Have Redefined Business as an example of what Amazon performed in the world of book publishing and distribution, but it is a process that all four of the giants that the book concerns itself with utilize, and one that is central to the concept of new media.

Disintermediation constitutes a breakdown of barriers in between two parties, typically those of producers and consumers, though it can be abstracted to fit a number of roles and roles are redefined in the digital age. The example touted in the book is that of Amazon taking up the role of publisher in order to combine the publishing, distribution, and selling platforms into one, thus eliminating the boundaries that had previously existed. A similar process (albiet a more hidden one) occurs with Google, when it combined image searches, news searches, video searches, and multiple other kinds of search under one browser. Facebook has done the same thing with promoting the integration of Facebook into many sites and applications. Apple has done the same thing with the app store.

Disintermediation is an intrinsic aspect of new media platforms, for new media inherently defies and transcends the old media, and its means of reaching the consumer. In “the medium is the message” sort of thought, disintermediation creates the new mediums through which messages are created.