wow, quite a few subjects touched on there.
I'll respond generally (though "all generalizations are false, including this one") ;)
information age: yea, the "new info, new mediums for info, new things to do with said info" is a formula stretching 30 years, oddly, as the Information Superhighway was to bring about more more more skillsets and angles of current-day economic "position" to leverage a person or/and their skillset to make things: better, more convenient, cheaper, more accessible, and (of course) the purveyors of such technology(s) would make boatloads of money.
Did that happen? Yes. Also, no. Depends on the person asked. of course, Real/True(tm) skillset(s) and lifestyles DID come from the spread of consumer technology: homebrewed/DIY business culture. Spanning from the casual gamer who films a blip of a "battle" once per week, hoping for an upload that hits virality, to the individual who pumps out content, or a form of publication, utility, aid, (all of the above, sometimes) and other work(s), but manages their time to create sustained action, and not burn out. Nevertheless, the homemade "hustle", or, simply individual work culture, came to be in the past 30 years, more so in the last 20. So that's the grit and change that actually manifested from high saturation of consumer tech products. Less so "turn a wrist watch into the world's library of everything" or "make cars that fly and replace airplanes" - just simple time and effort made life different for most, or all, people and all *can* benefit from that, likely more so with the younger crowd.
On middlemen and milkshakes, the former can be said about most industry and profession and even hobby time and again for centuries - person A does/provides a thing, grows a market to suit their favor, person B comes along and does it better, faster, cheaper, and distrupts that mini market, giving them a huge head start. Be it better window blinds that are less likely to break, or a phone that overtakes a market leader - large and small scale instances of this have, and will always, occur. Forever.
The latter, milkshakes, don't search "Soylent" and all the BS going on with that and The Verge in 2012, as there's some sick shit of people living on that stuff for weeks as a time. A "milkshake" that replaces food. People found the prospect...unappetizing :D
All the best!
t