Do we need representatives at all?
I mean, we have the Internet now.
We used to need experts/professionals for knowledge, news aggregation, and problem help/advice. Now, we have Wikipedia, Reddit, and Stack Exchange.
Why not gov too?
If we were voting on every issue collectively, not only would that be mob rule, but we would never be able to break convention. Some things, like ending prohibition on marijuana would pass because they are a majority opinion, but things like gay marriage still poll below 50% and unless you turn everyones opinion in favor (and it is amazingly hard to sway childhood imbued prejudice) you would have an endless cycle of human rights violations.
When you have people, who you know as your neighbor, but also know they are smart / wise / worthy of being your representative, they can put in the time and should care about the process enough to do the research and understand implications. It is a huge time commitment to understand the breadth of political topics in enough depth to have a reasonable opinion on them. It is the kind of thing best dealt with through employment.