Abstracted to middlemen in general, since most of it applies:
Convenience, product visibility, uniformity of services, buying power, plus they assume certain risks on my behalf (dealing with shady/inexperienced suppliers, maintaining distribution channels, chasing refunds, notifying me of recalls etc). It's the same reason I go to a grocery store instead of making trips to a dozen or more local farms.
In the digital arena, product suggestions are becoming important too. Amazon has a fairly accurate profile of what I like, and can show me stuff I might like but would never discover on my own. Independent niche suppliers can't build that profile and they usually don't want me checking out their competitors.
There's also the consumer willingness to trade product rights for cost savings. O'Reilly sells non-DRMed PDFs of their books on their own site, or I can buy a DRMed copy from Amazon for half price. For a book that'll might be antiquated in 3 years, that savings starts looking pretty good.
"Current technology" is no magic bullet either. The cost barrier of the infrastructure is lower, but it still requires talent a supplier may not specialize in to run it. Selling your own product poorly is probably worse for you than paying someone else to do it well.
Convenience, product visibility, uniformity of services, buying power, plus they assume certain risks on my behalf (dealing with shady/inexperienced suppliers, maintaining distribution channels, chasing refunds, notifying me of recalls etc). It's the same reason I go to a grocery store instead of making trips to a dozen or more local farms.
In the digital arena, product suggestions are becoming important too. Amazon has a fairly accurate profile of what I like, and can show me stuff I might like but would never discover on my own. Independent niche suppliers can't build that profile and they usually don't want me checking out their competitors.
There's also the consumer willingness to trade product rights for cost savings. O'Reilly sells non-DRMed PDFs of their books on their own site, or I can buy a DRMed copy from Amazon for half price. For a book that'll might be antiquated in 3 years, that savings starts looking pretty good.
"Current technology" is no magic bullet either. The cost barrier of the infrastructure is lower, but it still requires talent a supplier may not specialize in to run it. Selling your own product poorly is probably worse for you than paying someone else to do it well.