When the concept of real estate brokers arose, there was no internet. Brokers controlled all the information regarding listings, prices, location and addresses. From afar, it was impossible to know almost anything about a property. Today, anyone with internet access can look up Realtor.com, Trulia, Zillow, or even use the $$street view$$ feature in Google Maps to look up the same information that previously only third$-$party brokers had access to$.$

In your initial post,

Take a position on whether real estate brokers are still needed or not.

Then, compare and contrast the value and weight of professional experience versus personally researched online information.