Here's how we got here:<p>1) Money buys political influence (duh!)<p>2) Most cities have small tax bases, where car dealerships are a very large part of the tax base. City managers want a larger tax base to help fund their plans.<p>3) Thus, car dealerships & local politicians have aligned incentives.<p>4) So, local laws (zoning, advertising, etc) favor car dealerships.<p>5) Higher offices are filled from the pool of local politicians, as they move up the food chain.<p>6) Those politicians remember their contacts @ the dealers, who helped fund/launch their careers, & they remain aligned with them in passing laws empathetic to dealer's interests.<p>Of course, legitimately, car dealerships have HUGE capital investments (fast aging inventory, large chunks of prime real-estate, staffing costs). Would YC ever want to get into the traditional dealer space? No friggen way. Too risky & doesn't scale.<p>And, nobody really buys a car without a test drive/showroom. So, nearly any "online" sale is cannibalizing the dealer's investments.<p>So, we need to have some kind of online buying system where you MUST enter in a dealer showroom code before buying, & they get some commission, as they DO offer real value here folks.<p>IMO, the whole consumer retail system is going to evolve into "showroom + online buying" in a fair system soon.