In the same way the Uber is a threat to organized taxi services? Real estate agents have always been middlemen in the real estate transaction. Giving buyers/sellers the option to complete transactions with or without additional middlemen seems like a benefit for organized real estate from the buyer/seller perspective, doesn't it? Of course that's going to be a threat to everyone in the middle that makes money off the process. I've always thought that making the MLS exclusive was bullshit to begin with. As long as people have the choice to still work with agents (who obviously have experience and first-hand knowledge that you only get from that job), let it be a threat.
I used to work in the real estate tech industry. The vast majority of companies in that space view brokerages as their primary revenue source and develop software designed to give brokers more structural advantages to extract middle-man profits from renters and buyers. Zillow is the largest and most successful RE tech co to pursue that business model but they aren't alone.<p>Redfin is attempting a different business model that is in many ways hostile to brokerages. This is political stuff, basically. Changes to the relationship between landlords/sellers, brokers, and renters/buyers will have very large scale economic consequences and also likely result in long term changes to the way neighborhoods are constituted and populated.
basically, with real estate info easily accessible these days, agents do not worth 6% anymore, they might be worthing 1% for paperwork and some very basic consultation, but that's it, in my opinion, that can also be eliminated, we should be able to buy house like buying a car, or like buying items from the supermarket, because, 6% is too much these days.