A number of things, but the three worst, in my view, are that it is very often extremely slow to load (and sometimes fails to load at all), it requires me to allow Disqus to run Javascript, and it involves a third party (Disqus) sitting between me and the blog -- which means that I have to allow myself to be tracked across multiple websites just so I can make a comment.

Sites that use Disqus are sites that don't allow comments as far as I'm concerned.

I disagree. I HATE HATE HATE reddit's commenting system.

This. Disqus is horrible. Even if it worked right, it would still be horrible.

...which is precisely why I don't (and won't) use such commenting systems. Single sign-on is a terrible idea.

You should never pay until after the title check and a mechanic has taken a look at the car. Then you don't have to worry about this type of problem.

You have the same options that you'd have if a dealer did this to you: sue. Although if I were in your shoes and the check never cleared, I'd just park the car in the guy's driveway, drop the title & keys in his mailbox and walk away.

Clearly we do. A title check is just a stop to the DMV website. It's no more or less stressful than online shopping.

If I had such experience, I would probably feel differently. But, seriously, I can't think of a single time that I actually used a warranty on anything I had. It's all just burnt money.

I'm afraid that you misread me -- I have no anger at all. I was just surprised to see Best Buy cited as an example of something being done right because that doesn't square with my experience.

I'm also not comparing website prices. I'm comparing prices of equipment sold in my local brick & mortar Best Buy with the same equipment sold in a nearby computer parts store. The nearby store, on average, is priced 2/3 to 1/2 of what Best Buy prices are. This might be influenced by the types of products I tend to buy -- I don't buy Rokus or movies there. I buy networking items: switches, cables, drive enclosures, that sort of thing.

All I know is that literally every item I've priced at Best Buy can be had from other retailers for at least half the price, and when I have gone into Best Buy I have always been pressured to buy stuff I don't want.

The "sleazy" part pretty much comes from the Geek Squad, which is a pure ripoff operation.

Not stressful at all, because I can, and do, easily run title and accident checks and get exactly the same information that a dealership would have. Plus, I don't have to worry that the dealership is withholding important information.

Warranties don't decrease my stress level at all -- they merely increase the sense that I've just got ripped off. But that's a personal issue. In any case, you may find the internet bidding process to be low stress, but that certainly isn't true for everybody. The stress comes from interacting with a dealership, and internet bidding doesn't eliminate that.

As do I.

Right now, Tesla will send technicians to you. Once there are enough electric cars on the roads, though, independent mechanic will certainly be able to repair them as well.

I seriously doubt that the credit check for a loan even appears on list of things that people find unpleasant about dealerships. If it does, it's certain to be dead last. At least, when I hear people complaining about dealerships (and in my own complaints about them), "the credit check" has never, ever been mentioned.

There have been numerous such expose's over the past 50 years or so.

That's funny -- I just took my car in to my independent mechanic a couple of weeks ago and while it was there, he called me to say that a recall was issued for the air bag system. He performed the recall fix at no charge to me. I think you're wrong about recall fixes having to be done at a dealership.

That's an upside.

"Best Buy should have been perfectly able to function in a mixed market. But instead people use them as a show room- look at the products, and then buy online."

If Best Buy wasn't incredibly overpriced and a bit sleezy, they might might be able to land more of those sales.

This is the aspect of negotiation that makes me HATE negotiation. I just want the damned car (or whatever). I'm not interested in playing some sort of game where one of us wins and the other loses. It's one of the reasons I avoid dealers like the plague -- they price expecting that haggling will be done, which gives me a choice between two awful things: overpay for the car or engage in that stupid, unpleasant haggling "game".