81–90 of 328 posts
"Wiseguy learned that Ticketmaster's CAPTCHA system had only loaded 30,000 unique images into its database, rather than millions. So Lowson's team downloaded every image they could find as a .jpeg file, stayed up all night typing them out, and taught their bot how to match the images." Wow. I had the impression Ticketmaster had invested a lot of thought into anti bot tech. Apparently not.
> "There's an emotional aspect to what artists do, which is to say 'I'm not willing to charge $500 even though clearly the market value is $500. I'm going to charge $100, and at the end of the day someone else is going to make that money,'" The bots are just a symptom. Seems like this is likely the root of the problem. If the primary market was efficient, then there would be no secondary market, and the whole point o…
The artist/venue wins because the show gets sold out and they get to claim 'good guy' by offering lower priced tickets. The people who want to get rid of scalping are going to be really upset when they find out it means that Ticketmaster just implements a ticket auction.
Earlier quoted context omitted.
> Everyone's a winner. Except perhaps those die-hard fans who do not have the extra money available to see what may be a once-in-a-lifetime show. Perhaps a more correct ending would be "Everyone who has enough disposable income is a winner."
If they're too cheap, then it would be everyone with enough disposable time to sit in queue and grab them before they sell out.
Earlier quoted context omitted.
> If I am willing to pay the asking price for tickets, I should be able to buy them. If you're offering them so cheaply that I will happily buy all of the tickets then you're offering them too cheap and you can't really complain if I buy them. And if I'm an artist who wants to ensure that fans without a lot of money can see me? Should I be allowed to offer a concert where tickets cost 20% of market value, or should "…
>And if I'm an artist who wants to ensure that fans without a lot of money can see me? Either run background checks on fans and only allow people without a lot of money to take those seats, or throw large enough events such that there's enough supply to meet the demand at your preferred price.
Seriously - either background checks, or rent out yankee stadium? No solutions in between?
> The scourge of ticket bots and the immorality of the shady ticket scalpers using them is conventional wisdom I very much disagree. If I am willing to pay the asking price for tickets, I should be able to buy them. If you're offering them so cheaply that I will happily buy all of the tickets then you're offering them too cheap and you can't really complain if I buy them. If it weren't for ticket-scalpers, die-hard f…
Ticket scalping hurts artist exposure by finding an equilibrium point on price alone, where many artists may really want to maximize audience size and not earnings from tickets. Concerts are like promotional events for their brand and many people buy albums, swag, post on social media about the event, and that's all beneficial to the artist. Ticket scalping removes the ability of the artist to maximize attendance (an…
> The scourge of ticket bots and the immorality of the shady ticket scalpers using them is conventional wisdom I very much disagree. If I am willing to pay the asking price for tickets, I should be able to buy them. If you're offering them so cheaply that I will happily buy all of the tickets then you're offering them too cheap and you can't really complain if I buy them. If it weren't for ticket-scalpers, die-hard f…
You reasoning is a pretty good example of why the median person should be very wary of anyone saying that free markets and their "efficiency" are a good thing, or will result in good outcomes for them. They will result in good outcomes for the richest, sure. We can agree to that. You are conflating die-hard fans with die-hard wealthy fans which is a little silly. Not all fans have the same marginal value of pocket ch…
The first NIN concert I went to, I only had to steer clear of certain mosh-pits. The last one I had to put up with a sea of "brighter than the stage" phones upheld to block my view. I don't particularly care if everyone knows I was there, and I can watch incredible videos from home while drinking Rhinegeist.
I do think Kid Rock's approach to sales (tickets and beer) is awesome, and I grew to respect him for thinking outside the box. It's just a shame that I'm not a fan by any means.
I'm still trying to understand why they don't just auction tickets.
Because it is about being equitable to middle and lower-income fans. Otherwise, only the richest fans would outbid everyone else and the artists don't want to alienate a large majority of their fan base by making their shows unavailable to only but the folks with the means.
It's about the perception of being equitable. As a comment mentions above, many artists/venues work directly with scalpers.
Here in Japan it's quite common to have ticket lotteries and ID checks for certain popular/easily oversold artists. Better odds are given to early-bird applicants and fanclub members. Why is that so hard to implement?
Earlier quoted context omitted.
> If I am willing to pay the asking price for tickets, I should be able to buy them. If you're offering them so cheaply that I will happily buy all of the tickets then you're offering them too cheap and you can't really complain if I buy them. And if I'm an artist who wants to ensure that fans without a lot of money can see me? Should I be allowed to offer a concert where tickets cost 20% of market value, or should "…
> And if I'm an artist who wants to ensure that fans without a lot of money can see me? Which fans without a lot of money? How do they get picked? Lottery? Who can click the fastest? Who has no job and can stand in line for days?
If you have more fans than seats, some people will be unable to attend. That's unavoidable. But the constraint you're replying to says "ensure that fans without a lot of money can see me", not "ensure that all fans get to see me". So your criticism is a little off target. Yes, those fans willing to show the most dedication might have an advantage.
But we can solve the majority of the "disproportionate power to the wealthy" by the simple expedient of only allowing one or two tickets per person, and matching ID to purchasers of the ticket at the door.
Earlier quoted context omitted.
>And if I'm an artist who wants to ensure that fans without a lot of money can see me? Either run background checks on fans and only allow people without a lot of money to take those seats, or throw large enough events such that there's enough supply to meet the demand at your preferred price.
This really feels like treating the invisible hand like a religion. At all costs, price controls must be avoided! The will of the merchant is irrelevant! The only thing that matters is maximizing profit- any other solution would commit the heresy of denying power to wealth! Seriously - either background checks, or rent out yankee stadium? No solutions in between?
As long as there's more demand than supply, some mechanism will allocate the scarce supply to the buyers who want it most in the sense of being willing to pay the most for it. Any other system cannot be pareto-optimal.