That Middleman

Is it just me or is “cutting out the middleman” code for “we’re going to charge you more money”?

It always seems that cutting out the middleman means that they become the middleman. Then they claim that they have some special product you cannot get anywhere else so they end up selling it for more money. People just accept that and believe that it costs more because they don’t deal in large volumes, because, ya know, there’s no middleman.