[belthesar]

Having just went through the process of buying a car, and the amount of work, research and effort needed on my part to ensure that I didn't pay through the nose on a car, this is, in my opinion, squarely in response to the car sales industry almost universally adopting predatory sales tactics.

If I could go into a dealership and trust that everyone in the building wasn't out to get me, and instead wanted to build a longterm relationship with me from sales to service, advertised the actual cost of the vehicle instead of a BS pre-fees, pre-additional markup price, then I wouldn't do that. Perhaps I'm not seeing the whole story, but as I understand it the dealerships changed their behavior first, and the customer _had_ to get more savvy as a result.

You put enough customer predatory sales practices everywhere, and you raise a generation who just doesn't trust sales staff. It doesn't have to be this way though.

I gotta be careful though, I'm dangerously close to getting on my soapbox about how difficult it is to be a sustainable lifestyle business in today's day, and how much I wish a return to that.