That's a fascinating point. It has me wondering if this is a solution in search of a problem though. When I do business with someone online, typically I trust the third party more than I trust the counterparty. That's definitely the case when I use my American Express card to buy something from a merchant I've never used before. It's why Ebay and Amazon Marketplace succeeded. They broker the transactions and ensure you don't get screwed in exchange for a cut of the value.

So far I see absolutely zero effects of these fundamental changes. In fact, even finding a way to get bitcoins - without trusting one of those "exchanges" that constantly are getting hacked - looks non-trivial at best, and looks next to impossible to do it anonymously. As for using it for some common activity except selling/buying controlled substances and such - forget about it. When I am able to pay with Bitcoins on Amazon - then we'd be talking.

Not really. They still must rely on the Bitcoin peer to peer network, the code behind the Bitcoin clients, and the stability of the Internet. There is still a third party, it's just distributed more widely.