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You're overthinking it. Most Internet Sales Managers and Director of eCommerce are paid on the number of Internet leads that buy a car. Sure, there are some caveats for appointments and all that stuff too. But any savvy person who is paid for sold leads will just flood the leads.

This is the model that supports third party lead portals and all those crappy-ass widgets that most people can't stand. There is a big industry of products out there making dealers think leads are king. It also doesn't help that Internet leads are the most trackable customer and that's like crack. Leads are the blue lights on the front porch we just can't fly away from.

Few dealers are ready to turn it all off and build a website aimed at proving trust (think of Carvana) with the goal of just getting floor traffic. Shoot, I don't think the website companies even know what that looks like, so what the hell would a dealer like that do? Every channel of our industry is sucking the lead tit; including OEMs. Weening from it is going to require strong disruption.