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I can't be bothered watching another Dick Smith rant video as he's way off beam about a number of things.
One of his videos (maybe this one) mentioned all the money goes offshore. Yeah, nah - what he fails to tell you is that a number of these Online Travel Agent (OTA) sites have Australian employees in Australian offices working on all aspects of the business and systems involved. These employees then spend their earnings buying stuff in Australia just like other Australian employees (food, water, electricity, mortgages, etc).
Source: I'm one of those employees - if you want to know where, you can ask via PM. (Side note: the employment benefits I'm getting make me pleased with my employer and are better than anything I've ever had with an Australian company - besides the obvious travel discounts, we get almost all private health insurance cost covered as an example.)
Regarding why people use these OTAs and book through them - besides the points raised earlier, there's also usually a loyalty program available to get free nights. This can be really helpful if you doing a trip and need to stay at a number of different places. Run it through the same OTA, rack up the loyalty reward and possibly get a night free. Of course there's restrictions, as tanstaafl applies, but it's still better than messing around trying to deal direct with each and every hotel.
Now, if you going to one place only, and perhaps go back there every year, then sure, go ahead and deal direct if you want. You will probably get a better deal than at the OTA (just make sure it's more than about 10% saving otherwise the loyalty program benefits will probably match that and you would miss out on the other OTA benefits).
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