and why are they even needed?

In all of the many years I've owned cars, I've simply gotten the title directly from the state -- and I've lived in several different states. I cannot begin to imagine why a title service company is needed. This, perhaps I'm sorry to say, is reminding me of the claims that we need to demand ID from voters because of the nearly nonexistent possibility of voter fraud.

What is wrong with people that they don't understand they don't need a middleman for such things?

hours when the courthouse is open. The other possibility is that the owner isn't fluent in English so they can't handle the business at courthouses if there are only people that speak English.

But aren't the DMVs also open at off hours? As in early in the morning?

I'm going to confess to considerable ignorance here, since all of my life I've either worked shift work that meant I'd be free to go to things like the DMV when they were open, or was a stay-at-home mom which gave me a lot of flexibility, or, in more recent years, have been retired.

To my way of thinking the obvious solution is to make the DMV open hours that accommodate people who don't work normal hours, although come to think of it, those who work a job from 8am to 5pm are the most constrained. But my original point, that the DMVs need to be open longer hours and on Saturdays, still stands.

Among the reasons I really liked shift work was that it gave me the time off to do such things.

Everyone should have that opportunity.

As far as auto titles are concerned they are handled by the county tax assessor office rather than the DMV. The counties would have to hire personnel to meet the additional demand if more people use the county offices or if they had to expand their hours of operation. Not only do they have to allocate a budget for the wages of the new personnel, but also for their fringe benefits (e.g. vacation, health insurance and pensions) so it saves the counties money in the long run.

The article mention five specific counties that have deputized auto title service companies and all of them have significant Hispanic population which somewhat reinforces my point about the language barriers.

There is the issue that some people might not want to appear at a government office because they might have outstanding warrants so they turn to these private businesses instead.

Finally, it is interesting to note that the attorney filing suit for the auto title service companies is the former county judge for Travis County (including Austin) who is a Democrat.

to a private contractor thereby leaving all the state DMV employees obsolete. These privately-owned renewal/registration/title set their own hours and these jobs are now worked by employees who I'm sure earn only a fraction of what the state employees earned...