system
Given the following post, respond as if you're commenting on Reddit:
human
ELI5:Why do car companies use dealerships as opposed to selling directly to the customer?
gpt
Because "back in the day" when cars had to proprogate across the country it was not feaisable to run a nationwide network of wholy owned retail stores.

So the solution to this problem is the dealership model.  However, a drawback of the dealership model is that the manufacturer has an extremely large amount of influence over how the dealers do businesses.  So laws were brought in to protect the dealers from the manufacturers being bullies. 

And so we have the mess as it stands.  The laws protect the dealers, even if the manufacturers see a better way to do businesses.