Why free?
You still have to pay the cost of brewing beer...its just that it will be cheaper as the retailer cant charge the premium he charges for getting the beer to you(txn cost)....
just thinking aloud...if we just extend this further...if the intermediary(retailer) doesnt make anything in bringing the beer to you (i.e charges no txn cost)...he wouldnt stock it anymore because he would be losing money (inventory cost, selling cost etc) and thus soon go out of business....so there will be no intermediaries if intermediaries cant charge the cost they incur in conducting the transaction....
But i guess there is a difference b/w not charging the txn cost, and actually not having any tansaction cost. If theoretically the retailer doesnt incur any costs, if retail space , electricity and evevrything else is free then he loses nothing by stocking up on beer ...thats really zero cost... so he can continue stocking without incurring any losses...in this case intermediaries may still be around if there are no real costs incurred in the transaction
Summary: No real costs incurred None Charged - Intermediaries may continue to be around as they are not losing money and may hope to start charging again some day
If real costs are incurred but txn costs are not allowed to be charged then intermediaries will go out of business and there will be no intermediaries.
I think what i just said above is BS....but WTF...i wasted 5 minutes on this ..so am not going to delete this ...