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Comment by throwaway55533 | Hacker News Reader

> government-mandated monopoly

Could you expand on this, aren't U.S. car dealerships private businesses competing in a (mostly) unregulated market?

> direct manufacturer auto sales are prohibited in many states by franchise laws requiring that new cars be sold only by independent dealers.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tesla_US_dealership_disputes

not a monopoly per se, but "forced demand"

To be specific, the objective of state statutes is to block direct manufacturer auto sales. The objective is achieved in a roundabout way: the statutes written prevent the establishment of physical dealership locations owned by the manufacturers. They are not broad enough to restrict direct sales. This means that some creative sales techniques can be used, if you:

(a) don't need to have cars in a lot,

(b) can sell online,

Then, you can (in many states), sell cars directly.

Tesla does all 3 as they usually don't have (a) inventory and in some cases, the law doesnt prohibit showrooms (b) seem perfectly comfortable selling you the car online (and critically, customers are ok with this too) and (c) have money to fight for settlement of the issues.

Theres even more creative sales now - tesla is actively setting up sales ops in Indian reservations - which have their own sets of the laws outside of specific states.

Edit: added (c) which is certainly an important factor in many states

Doesn't just about everyone hate dealing with a dealership? Shouldn't it be very easy to vote to fix that in a democracy?

See “Public Choice Theory”: https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Public_choice

Or watch the BBC comedy “Yes, Minister” and “Yes, Prime Minister” to grasp how government (as well as most large companies) actually works.

Yep. Basically, in no election we can practically foresee, is this going to be a politically salient issue. The voters aren't motivated enough about it, and the interest groups involved are mostly aligned on keeping the status quo. Elections put people and parties into power, not individual ideas.

Direct democracy (https://klissarov.eu/en/books/platform-of-the-pp-direct-demo...) can change the status quo - if enough people get up from the couch and do vote for it. It just needs to reach a critical mass - but at the moment people are too lazy and wait for someone else to do the job.

Not when dealers pay politicians to keep it that way.

Even if you ran a petition and forced a state ballot measure, dealers would run a propaganda campaign to make it sound like a pro-Tesla measure.

"they're giving YOUR RIGHTS away to BIG CORPORATIONS. Vote NO on Bill 9928"

when, of course, that very line was funded by large corporations. such is life in Modern America

I think that's true for tech savvy nerds, but my mom loves her dealership. Part of it might be the experience of leasing vs owning, where the dealership often does maintenance for free during the lease.

where the dealership often does maintenance for "free" during the lease

FTFY. She's still paying for it!

It depends. Most jurisdictions allow for a ballot referendum to put measures to a popular vote. This has gotten more difficult with signatory requirements that have gotten larger in most states, mostly orchestrated to keep the dominant parties in power and limit grass roots efforts in general.

Going through existing congressional process means getting at least a champion on board and overcoming dis/misinformation from many insider corporations, often large local donors.

edit: From my understanding,successful campaigns via referendum tend to cost anywhere from $2-20 million usd. Often involving paid signature gathering and local advertising.

The "problem" with referenda is they often forcibly enact policies that the elected politicians, judges, bureaucrats, and other organized political actors don't want. Since these people decide what the government actually does, they often find ways to ignore, work around, or in some cases outright overturn, "settled" referendum results. Making it more difficult to get questions on the ballot outside of the ordinary political process is just streamlining things from their perspective.

The percentage of people who want a law to pass is negatively correlated with the chance of it passing.

If voting could change anything it’d be illegal.

Too bad it's a Republic.

“Republic” (any system in which top-level government offices aren't personal property of the officeholder) and “Democracy” (any system in which government serves and is accountable to the general population—usually through voting on candidates and/or specific policies—rather than vice versa) are not mutually exclusive.

It’s pretty common for modern Western governments to be both of (Democratic, often also Federal) Republic and (Representative, sometimes with minor areas of Direct) Democracy.

To put a finer point on it: actual experts in the study of government routinely refer to the US as a democracy. It’s absolutely not a sign of better familiarity with the topic to “correct” that usage—it’s a sign of low side of middling familiarity, specifically.

Debate whatever you want, we do not have a direct democracy, which is what most people hear when they hear "Democracy". It's Representative Democracy. Supposedly.

That isn’t what most people think of when they hear “democracy” in the context of describing countries like the US as a democracy. Lay-usage and expert usage are in accord here. It means more-or-less liberal and with voting that significantly affects how the state runs and/or who runs it. That’s all, and that usage doesn’t confuse anyone. If we didn’t use “democracy” for that we’d just have to come up with something else, because it’s a very useful term to have. But everyone just uses “democracy” and that works great.

It's what a nonzero number of Americans hear.

You're talking to one, who knows others.

Democracy as defined is a goal we have. Not something all (maybe most!) Americans would claim to enjoy.

Goalposts shift from

> most people

> a nonzero number of Americans

Holy motte and bailey, Batman.

Why don't you keep this thread on-topic, and reply to:

> "Shouldn't it be very easy to vote to fix that in a democracy?"

You mean you thought tejohnso believes the US is a direct democracy, because of that post?

They, like many others, probably have a somewhat fuzzy grasp on what the meaning of word democracy is, due to the way it's used.

Honestly, I can't even think of an alternate(, but still charitable,) interpretation of:

"Shouldn't it be very easy to vote to fix that in a democracy?"

Suggest one, if you can?

> we do not have a direct democracy, which is what most people hear when they hear "Democracy".

That hasn't been the dominant use of the term for centuries, but, sure, you keep pretending.

No, you're right, we're bringing (federated republics with some vestige elements of) democracy ALL OVER THE WORLD!

It's a federated representative democracy with some issues, some of the components of which have some level of direct democracy.

It is also a republic. It could be a republic even if it was a pure direct democracy somehow without "issues" - in fact I struggle to see how a direct democracy without issues could be something other than a republic.

> some of the components of which have some level of direct democracy.

What, HOAs?

State level initiative and referenda processes.

That's the opposite of a monopoly. It's intentionally breaking up vertical integration.

Kinda like auditing.

Car dealerships exist in what is probably the most favorable regulatory environment of any business. It's a side effect of owners of car dealerships often being the wealthiest people in a locale, and being politically active. If you look up donations to your local and state politicians, you'll probably find several of the largest donors have last names that happen to match that of the local Ford or Chevy dealership network.

They have rules that protect them from competition from manufactures, rules that protect them from them from competition from other dealerships (i.e., Ford can't allow a dealership to open across the street from one they don't like), in many states, there are special rules for inheriting a dealership.

No, they only exist because state laws prevented manufacturers from selling directly to customers.

They'd originally existed because manufacturers didn't have enough resources to sell directly to customers, and they'd probably still exist (in a smaller capacity) today even if manufacturers could sell direct. Because there still are some manufacturers that sell low enough volumes in the US that it would probably still financially make sense for them to lean on a dealer network.

But for sure, Ford, GM, Toyota, Stellantis, etc would probably love to sell direct.

So you're saying dealerships are more of a monopoly than manufacturers selling directly to customers?

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