This line
You may also hear things along the line of, blockchain helping to “kill the middleman”.
gave me another meaning than the one presented in the remaining article. I rather thought of data security issues - in a communication protocol a 'middleman' is a possible listener, eavesdropper, making use of the thus obtained information in a way that brings a disadvantage to one or both original communication partners.
As far as I (didn't know anymore and had to re-read to) understand blockchain technology offers (or could offer?) security against this misuse of data too. I'm not completely sure.
But how do we solve that issue that a bunch of witnesses are needed? Unless something as small as a Raspberry Pi can be used as a witness server we have a usability issue - and even then running witness nodes requires trust from people who are no IT nerds.
No, I think the trust issue will remain viable with the blockchain technology, it will just shift.
MI REFLEXIÓN DE HOY
El hombre sabio entendido tiene la lengua muy pesada y el pensamiento muy veloz
Soy nuevo en Steemit. Ya vote por usted, ayúdeme también para que crezcamos juntos.
You touched on several aspects of data security on the blockchain, including related governance issues, and these are good topics for publications. In this article "middleman" is meant in the classical sense as someone bringing together counterparties for a fee.