[golovast]

This is definitely on point. I've worked for a fairly large regional MLS at one point and interacted with a fair number of other MLS's and what I've found out about this business was pretty mind boggling.

Vast majority of them are stuck in the past (think 1990s) and their only competitive advantage is restricting access to information. A typical real estate agent (with very few exceptions, I'd guess <5%) is adding little to no value to the transaction and is simply taking a middle-man fee. They are in general petrified of places like Redfin, Zillow and Trulia and they do anything in their power to maintain the current business model. Generally it involves limiting access to "their" data and coming up with whatever legal roadblocks they can use to defend against other sites.

The agents

However, they are sitting on an absolute treasure trove of data which would be amazing in the hands of the right people.