I always hear that the two largest financial commitments you make in life are your house and your car. In the past year, I purchased a car online and re-financed my house online.
I bought a car online in 1998 (essentially researched the vehicle I wanted online, got quotes from dealers via email and worked them over until only one was left standing). Chad seems to be hand-waving over a lot of steps here (he never mentions visiting Edmunds.com, for one thing, and who buys a car without doing that?). Did he get a good deal or did he just get a good enough deal without subjecting himself to the Dealer Experience?
I found the online refinancing anecdote more interesting. It’s hard to identify the parts he’s most happy about. Doing it all by email seems convenient: we have refinanced Thistle Dew, our stately home, 2 or 3 times (I’ve lost count) in the three years we’ve owned it, and email played a role in those transactions. But for me the bottom line is, well, the bottom line. How much do you save each month? This is akin to the magic of compound interest: I’ll put up with some red tape and phone tag _once_ to save some dollars _every month_. I’ll go to the mortgage company’s office and spend that hour shuffling papers and making bad jokes in exchange for smaller house payments.
When I read books like The Social Life of Information or Information Rules, coupled with my own experience, I’m skeptical about breathless promises. While I’ll concede there are inefficiencies to be wrung out of these processes, re-jiggering the processes themselves without making any fundamental changes in them is not earth-shattering. And that’s all I see going on here. No disintermediation or other New Economy buzzwords.