I’m kind of smack in the middle of Generation X, so while I didn’t have a smartphone in my bassinet, I did come into adulthood in the Internet age. So I get it: We’ve become accustomed to taking to the laptop to DIY just about everything.

We research our restaurant options with the intensity of vetting a VP pick. Dissertations have been finished with less research than we put into the plane-ticket buying process. There’s a sense of taking the power back in all that, and a belief that we now have the ability to get the best deal for the best price, if we’re willing to put in the work.

The side effect, though, is that by eschewing legacy service industries like travel agencies (and, yes, insurance brokers) in favor of Internet sleuthing, we often do all that extra work, only to end up with purchases that are an imperfect fit, at equal or higher prices.