Combine that with the fact that many states have made direct-to-consumer sales illegal [1]. Pure rent-seeking and regulatory capture from dealerships. Similar with hospitals: certificate of need laws [2] mean that you need to go to your direct competitors to ask for their permission to start a new hospital. Imagine if to open a pastry shop you needed a permission from every other pastry shop in the city. When someone says: capitalism is bad, ask - what capitalism? We don't have one.

[1] https://www.wispolitics.com/wp-content/uploads/2021/08/State... (PDF)

[2] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Certificate_of_need?useskin=mo...

I wish this entire Stealerships industry just vanishes and this reason (crazy ADMs) alone is enough. There is enough tacit collusion in the industry that makes it unnecessarily difficult to get around being ripped off.

I thought auto sales was a result of the downward/upward demand wave the pandemic drove?

Basically fewer people bought cars, then lots more people bought cars and meanwhile there was a shortage of chips.

Correct. Shortage of supply due to supply chain disruption. Increase in demand because of high savings rates. Value of used cars has increased globally because people are buying used instead of new.

I am not sure what people want used car dealers to do, if they could sell more cars they would but they can't make cars appear from nowhere.