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To: Glenn D. Rudolph who wrote (91883)	1/22/2000 11:04:00 PM
From: Greater Fool	Read Replies (1) \| Respond to of 164684

>>Are you saying the dealers provide a lot of value and are not appreciated or just the opposite? Value "subtracted" as a tongue-in-cheek opposite of value added. People are willing to pay a premium to not interact with a dealership. However, that's an oversimplification. I'm guessing that when people buy from a web site they assume they are getting the best price, and so don't shop around. Kind of like mortgages -- I've found that online mortgages are not particularly competitive in price. One would think that by eliminating the middleman (mortgage brokers), banks would be able to offer the most favorable terms directly. But they don't. E-loan, for example, wants half a point origination fee. That's a staggering sum for me, the sorry bastard that wants to refinance his humble San Jose house. I personally don't understand how someone can buy a $20K, $30K (or in HJ's case, $150K?) asset like a car and not shop the hell out of it. Or finance a house without niggling to the end over the cost. My take on it is that for the near term the web remains something of a novelty for people, so they will take time to become discriminatory on price. And getting back to Vert -- don't feel too bad; I gave up on it a long time ago. I just about puked on Friday. Nothing like opportunity cost to bring on the nausea.