ONCE AGAIN, we are considering apples to oranges. Electricians and Plumbers make 55/hr. The person who employs them makes five times that. See, I was also an Industrial Robotics company owner before real estate. I know very well what kind of money you make there. I made well over 1000.00 an hour off of my company during good times. Of course, I had no one to save me when everything went to hell and my health failed me either...
I, as an agent, may not be worth $200 an hour to you, but IF my clients wish to do business with my TEAM, it will cost that because out of that $200 an hour, I am paying half a dozen people. Apparently they see no problem with that because I have dozens or repeat clients on both the buying and selling side. Apparently they find VALUE in what they pay and what they get in return. you are thinking like an employee that bares no risk. No professional, be it a doctor, lawyer, Realtor, etc, would even think about taking on owning a business for the rates that employees make. Big difference between being a business owner and being an employee. Sorry, but you are incorrect.
Also, Being an electrician does not take a 2 year degree. It takes passing a 6 week course and then a state exam. I did that too. You know, if we are only considering value for time of education, wouldn't every billionaire have multiple PHD's? You view of the world is very skewed and I am guessing you are a student seeing how you equate value with education. Here is a life pro tip for you. Most of the millionaires in the world are people who do simple things like trash collectors. Education is not a factor in real world value or wealth. Simply read The Millionaire Next Door, or The Millionaire Mind and you will see this. Please don't take my comments as condescending as I do not mean it that way. But Reddit seems to have this belief that education is the only way to make big dollars, all while your local small time mechanic may be making $300k a year.
In the end, I will leave you with this. A person's business value is exactly what the clients feel they should pay. If my clients didn't think I was worth the money, they wouldn't pay it, over and over... period. The Lobbying you are talking about is pointless to your argument because ANYONE can sell their home at ANY time without using a Realtor. Just because we happen to control things like MLS, which we built and PAY for is not a our fault. We do not force them to hire us, but instead they see value in having agents in the area bring clients instead of them having to find them on their own. They see value in hiring us to use our TOOLS (like MLS) to accomplish their goals. If you don't see value, then don't call a Realtor... but don't complain when your house doesn't sell. Saying it is the Realtors fault that YOU cannot market YOUR home at the same level that they can, or you can't get the results they can is silly. You don't pay for the systems they do. You don't pay for the advertisement they do. You don't spend every day of your life making relationships like they do. YOU DON'T PUT IN THE WORK THAT THEY DO.
One day, you will be stuck in a situation in real estate and you will wish you had an experienced person guiding the ship... the few thousand dollars in commissions will be a drop in the bucket in the big picture.