Disintermediation is the process by which a process middleman in a process is eliminated. Remember what the Internet did to travel agents? Who uses a travel agent these days? And how about bricks-and-mortor book stores?

Well, we are (finally) getting closer to disintermediation of the cable TV companies. The Internet is a terrific platform for delivering content directly to end users. As users buy increasing numbers IP-enabled gadgets for use in their homes, cars and everywhere else for that matter, the days of cable companies providing programming via a wire are likely numbered. Connect your TV to a computer, pick up your iPad, fire up your cellphone, and you already can access a ton of entertainment available on demand and without traditional broadcast or cable TV signals. No tuner required, just a web browser or entertainment app.

Wired’s Epicenter notes a milestone in the process of Cable TV obsolescence. Hulu, already an extremely popular Internet TV (IPTV) service, appears close to piloting a new service that would provide a huge collection of TV programs for $10/month. This would include CBS, Viacom, Time Warner’s television studio divisions, Fox, NBC Universal, ABC, ABC Family, Biography, Lionsgate, Endemol, MGM, MTV Networks, National Geographic, Digital Rights Group, Paramount, PBS, Sony Pictures Television, Warner Bros. and more, including Wired.com.

For ten bucks, one wouldn’t expect the level of programming cable and satellite offer for larger monthly bills. But if paid Hulu works, the networks will have proof that the internet can circumvent cable and satellite companies and they could easily add more expensive content tiers down the road.

If the networks prove they can charge consumers directly, and consumers are happy to supply their own “cable boxes” in the form of game consoles, television-connected computers, set-top boxes, tablets and so on, it’s difficult to see why networks would tolerate cable and satellite providers grabbing a slice of profits, just for sending the shows through one pipe rather than the other.

Cable and satellite are classic middlemen. When the internet meets the middleman, the middleman tends to disappear — or at least be replaced by a thinner middleman. We’ve seen it with record stores, classified ad-dependent newspapers, video-rental stores, bookstores and any other business that delivers something that the internet can deliver more efficiently.

The “thinner middleman” as far as IPTV is concerned could be ISPs, which already charge more for faster data plans capable of delivering better-looking video. But as multipurpose providers, they’ll never command as large a slice of the pie as cable/satellite companies did with their television-only pipes.

Think about it. Wouldn’t you love to replace your current cable television provider with a $10 monthly fee? And wouldn’t you love to access the programing on your computer-connected TVs, your iPad, your computers, your cellphone, etc.? And, via IPTV, you can also access hundreds of alternative programming sources, like this, that no cable provider carries at all. The fabled universal jukebox that would let you call up any media on demand is closer every day.

Or do you want to be wired to your cable provider and its monthly bills?

Update 6/29/10: Hulu Plus is now here. Or at least it is here enough that you can ask for invitation to try the preview.  The iPhone and iPad apps are now available in the iTunes app store. Looks great to me.