I've never been much of an afficionado when it comes to affiliations. Or maybe I should clarify that: I don't much care for connecting to affiliates of more original creators. Rather than getting CDs from faceless record companies, I prefer to purchase my music directly from the artists themselves. Of course there is often still a record manufacturer involved, but then it is because the artists themselves choose to sell the albums that way.
This reluctance to deal with middlemen is also an effect of today's bad guys always trying to insert themselves in between seller and buyer, also known as the "man in the middle" attack. Having had to deal with these situations, I can now write about them. Although I know middlemen are a useful part of economy in some cases, even Tesla's approach shows the advantages of weeding them out: they sell their cars themselves rather than through a dealer network, thus adding to the net profit they make on each car.