[gd1]

It's not so much distrust of middlemen, as it is distrust of anonymous middlemen. And also automated middlemen. People are happier getting shafted by a person they can see than a bot they can't. Otherwise, they would be hurling abuse at Apu down at the Kwik-e-mart when he charges them 30% extra for a quart of milk just because he bridges time (11pm) and space (down on the corner) to provide liquidity and make it convenient for them.

Part of this is also algorithm aversion (even here on HN) - watch how people are reacting to Tesla autopilot crashes. There is a lot of tin foil stuff about 'algos gone haywire', but I can tell you now that humans fat fingering in the market were both more common and more deadly.