Powerful Realtor Group Agrees to Slash Commissions to Settle Lawsuits (opens in new tab)

I also root for monopoly busting, but worry that the travel and real estate industries are relatively easy sectors to target compared to the real monopoly companies (Meta/Twitter/TikTok, Amazon, Apple's walled garden). The power in those older industries is fairly distributed across a large number of companies and individuals, so coordinated lobbying is more challenging (even for Realtor Association). Shadowy cabals are easier to maintain when fewer people have real power (you don't even need the shadows or the cabals!). Furthermore, customer's interact with them fairly infrequently.

Compare the older industries to TikTok's recently demonstrated ability to shutdown access to congressional representatives on topics other than keeping regulator's and legislator's hands off the company. The power difference is obvious regardless of how you feel about the debate around TikTok.

In Australia there’s no such thing as a buyer’s agent, just the seller’s agent (called a listing agent).

The concept of a buyer’s agent was really odd to me when we moved to the US and started looking for a house to buy..

There are already class action lawsuit notices about this being sent out to anyone that has bought or sold a home in the last few years in some states. (I know, I received one.)