But. Even when the pricing is similar to that of the broker, you'll get the satisfaction of cutting the broker out. I know I would.
The camera store example is flawed, but only slightly. When it comes to buying and selling traffic online, guys that are selling traffic aren't comparable to big time business in terms of costing. It was used purely as an example - their net profit isn't tens of millions of dollars every year, and they are in a position to cut buyers a good deal. Especially someone that may want to buy 100k traffic per day. I'd rather get that from a reputable dealer than Mr. Broker.
Buying traffic, as always, pricing is relative to traffic volume. One of the few circumstances I can think of where a dealer would refuse to sell to anyone OTHER than a broker, is when the dealer does not want to deal with extremely small transactions. But, anyone buying a small amount of traffic wouldn't make such a great saving by going directly to the dealer.
To buy large amounts of traffic from a broker without at least contacting the dealer (if you know who it is) to make them an offer would be INSANE. The worse they can say is no.
Hey... maybe I'll contact my hosting company and ask them to bring down my hosting by $5 per MB/sec. I lose nothing... they worse they can say is NO. Same principle when it comes to traffic. Just contact the dealer if you know who it is, and see what they have to offer you.
Sure. Any big purchaser would already know that. But recently I see people buying huge amounts of traffic from brokers. ;-)