Recently I bought a Toyota SUV for a $7000 markup. But I was able to sell my lease (which I had no idea was even possible) for $5000.
Now, dealership laws in many states forbid the automaker from selling their cars directly to the consumer if they already have a dealership in the state, with their only recourse being that the automaker can say "you can't mark this car above MSRP", with varying levels of success.
I just thought the headline was a bit much. Although maybe I was thinking of the article's headline, not your headline here on HN. I want to say they were the same when I posted my comment, but I'm not sure.
It's hyperbolic, but yeah self-interest is a pretty good approximation for behavior of all living organisms. Powerful natural forces like self-interest should be utilized to produce a good outcome, but they don't guarantee a good outcome just by being powerful. Jealousy and hate are powerful forces too.
For capitalism to work, many supporting structures are required. One is information symmetry. If you have to drive 10h and speak with a sales rep for 1h before you learn the price, you don't have a free market. Aside from this being deceitful and false advertising, it introduces economic inefficiencies in the most basic sense. All efforts that bring transparency are to be saluted.
In that sense it is no different than airline ticket fees (though not baggage fees) and similar schemes. The goal is to stop customers from doing apples-to-apples comparisons when shopping.