This line

You may also hear things along the line of, blockchain helping to “kill the middleman”.

gave me another meaning than the one presented in the remaining article. I rather thought of data security issues - in a communication protocol a 'middleman' is a possible listener, eavesdropper, making use of the thus obtained information in a way that brings a disadvantage to one or both original communication partners.
As far as I (didn't know anymore and had to re-read to) understand blockchain technology offers (or could offer?) security against this misuse of data too. I'm not completely sure.
But how do we solve that issue that a bunch of witnesses are needed? Unless something as small as a Raspberry Pi can be used as a witness server we have a usability issue - and even then running witness nodes requires trust from people who are no IT nerds.
No, I think the trust issue will remain viable with the blockchain technology, it will just shift.