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Comment by janderson215 | Hacker News Reader

It’s an outdated law (IMO) meant to protect car dealerships from manufacturers opening up dealerships down the road and undercutting them.

I think it’s similar to the law preventing movie studios from opening theaters.

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That plus heavy lobbying and donations by car dealerships making a lot of money. Electric cars are also bad for their fat profit margins on service for ICE cars.

In what sense is it outdated? What has changed that means that it used to be relevant, and now no longer is?

Dealer's Choice[0] explains why these laws were originally passed; Ford and GM forced dealerships to accept new cars during the 1920 depression and the Great Depression. The laws persist because car dealerships are well-connected politically and donate heavily to campaigns; it's just a special interest group protecting their business model.

[0] https://www.newyorker.com/magazine/2006/09/04/dealers-choice...

Emphasizing that it is my opinion, I think it’s easier to reach consumers directly. I haven’t researched the history of car dealerships, but I’m guessing (dangerous) that they came into existence because the locals knew the local market better. Now that they exist, they need to be protected to prevent too much unemployment too fast in local job markets. Anecdotal, but I haven’t heard people talking about the wonderful experience they recently had at their car dealership. I think some of that comes from legal protections and getting comfy.

and selling the exact same product to consumers for widely different amounts.

If I wanted the status quo, I'd argue that dealers have gained enough power to accomplish the same thing without state laws. Look at what happened when US manufacturers tried to decrease the number of dealerships for an example. They fought it out with a barrage of lawsuits and the efforts were only really minimally successful.

Its really unlikely that existing brands would be able to change at this point, at least the US brands.

Maybe only perspective. In my view, car manufacturers should be competing with other car manufacturers, rather than independently operated dealerships. If a dealership provides a value to consumers then it should survive. If not, then the consumers are better off without them.

At the very least, I would like the option to buy directly, since I probably don't use the services provided by the dealership anyway.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/United_States_v._Paramount_Pic....

The "Paramount Decree" is lifted as of Aug 7, 2020 with a 2 year sunset period, so as of Aug 7, 2022, there is no law preventing studios from owning theaters.

Suddenly Movie studios:theaters::Apple:AppStore comes to mind.

The most interesting part re/ movie studios is Disney. I seriously wonder when someone finally brings down the hammer on them... they own the production companies, the studios, the after-market entetainment (Disney World) and so many franchises that they can outright extort cinema owners to licensing terms that are extremely favorable towards Disney.

MCU, Star Wars, Avatar... get blocked from showing them as a cinema owner and you can close shop. Especially with how many new films the MCU alone will bring up over the next years.

>I seriously wonder when someone finally brings down the hammer on them

Probably not anytime soon, since in less than a year, they will be able to own the cinemas.

At that point however I see antitrust action inevitable (pardon the pun).

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