There s nothing wrong about them, they work hard and are not rent seekers (a commission on successful deal is the exact opposite of a rent).
Every countries has them (Im French, live in Hong Kong) and what you bemoaned is mundane in my experience.
When the real estate lobby makes the whole industry a de facto closed shop, the real estate agencies themselves are full of middlemen picking each other's pockets, and the commission rate and total amount are far in excess of what you'd expect in a free market, and completely unrelated to any effort or expense on behalf of the agent? Sure, it's the exact opposite of rent seeking /sarc
You personally may prefer to handle each of the above on your own, but millions of people prefer one-stop shopping where everything is taken care of, along with services like title registration, having a person show you how to use the electronics, offering coverage for regular maintenance, etc.
Why would direct delivery take 3-6 months? Also, most dealerships wont give you your car the day you buy it anyway.
As far as financing goes, thats totally orthogonal to the process of buying the car. As it stands now, car dealers get kick back from financers and try to steer customers into the highest interest loans they can, so decoupling the two processes would probably benefit customers.
Recalls aren't handled by salesmen.
Used care sure. Dealers make sense. Secondhand markets need price discovery too afterall.
Every consumer bank offers auto loan financing and yet somehow, tons of people prefer to go with the dealer.
You still didn't state how the car would get from the factory to your house - would you have to hire a delivery company? Or you think GM is going to put up with "your car delivery is approaching your house" and you reply with "I'm at work can you come back at 6?"
Recalls are handled by dealerships, which is where salesman work.
Like most of HN, you are choosing to ignore the real-world reasons these companies exist and assume some techno-utopia would solve all problems. Indeed, a small percentage of car buyers would benefit from a pure direct-from-factory purchase option, but the vast majority of car buyers want or need one or more of the services that car dealerships provide.
That's how long it takes now. Relying on dealerships is part of the reason for that. If manufacturers were allowed to direct deliver, they could do away with dealerships as the only warehousing mechanism, and do their own warehousing to cut down that time. I was trying to point out that the constraints of the current system would not apply to a different system, but you missed that. No biggie.
> Every consumer bank offers auto loan financing and yet somehow, tons of people prefer to go with the dealer.
Again, why is that? Go to a dealership and see what price you can talk them down to with financing, and what price you can talk them down to paying cash. You'll be surprised at the results.
> You still didn't state how the car would get from the factory to your house - would you have to hire a delivery company?
You could pick it up from the warehouse, or have it delivered. Both of those technologies have existed for a long time :)
> Like most of HN, you are choosing to ignore the real-world reasons these companies exist and assume some techno-utopia would solve all problems
What does doing away with dealerships have to do with technology? Im confused by that statement.