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Ask HN: Side projects that are making money, but you'd not talk about them?

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Re: Ask HN: Side projects that are making money, but you'd not talk about them?

#151

Post by tessierashpool »

xnorswap wrote: post #106
culturestate wrote: post #81

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Scalpers don’t typically sell tickets for less than face value.

Nor is OP if you take their 20% discount into account. Scalping tickets designed to be heavily discounted for fans, then re-selling them to anyone for profit is scummy even if the price still comes under the non-fan price. At best you're just denying other fans the chance to get discounts for your own profit.

it's just arbitrage.

scalping tickets isn't morally distinct from any other form of "buy low, sell high."

Re: Ask HN: Side projects that are making money, but you'd not talk about them?

#152

Post by bko »

xnorswap wrote: post #78
MattyMc wrote: post #14

I staked $15k, bought season tickets for my favourite baseball team, wrote an electron app to auto-price and market those tickets under face value. We ended up going to 6-7 games for free, sat in MUCH better seats than we ever could have afforded to, and had access to playoff tickets at face value. Further, my friends had access to great seats at reasonable prices and I avoided having to buy from resale sites (who I…

So you're a ticket scalper? That's nothing something to be proud of. You say your friends detest resale sites but it sounds like you just became one yourself unless I'm misunderstanding what was happening here.

Scalping is necessary for a lot of events. For instance, a few years back concert sales used to sell a year ahead of time. Who decides they want to go to a concert a year from now? So after a few days they're all sold out to scalpers. Maybe without scalpers they would get sold out by maybe 6 months. But who plans to go to a concert 6 months from now? It's unreasonable. So the alternative is to never get to go to concerts unless you're a fastidious planner.

The other side is even if you want to go to a concert and buy tickets a year ahead of time. What happens if something comes up? You can't resell them. Having the ability to resell your tickets is a huge value to people intending to go to the concert.

You can argue that there should be a better distribution mechanism and I agree, but scalpers are not the problem

Re: Ask HN: Side projects that are making money, but you'd not talk about them?

#153

Post by bko »

culturestate wrote: post #81
xnorswap wrote: post #78

Earlier quoted context omitted.

So you're a ticket scalper? That's nothing something to be proud of. You say your friends detest resale sites but it sounds like you just became one yourself unless I'm misunderstanding what was happening here.

Scalpers don’t typically sell tickets for less than face value.

They sell if for the market price, and often times they get burned and sell below face value. If you see concert tickets available through the official venue, you should look at resale prices and you could often get cheaper prices as scalpers misjudged the demand or supply

Re: Ask HN: Side projects that are making money, but you'd not talk about them?

#155

Post by macinjosh »

xnorswap wrote: post #138
macinjosh wrote: post #133

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> If you're okay with huge swathes of the population going without whole sectors of entertainment because "it's a free market" then you're entitled to that opinion. That isn't a society I value. What I don't think you realize is that rules against scalping help create a mono-culture. Sure huge swathes may be barred from a Bieber concert or whatever is popular today but if that happened the dearth of access to that co…

Yachts aren't inherently scarce, they're just expensive to build and maintain. With more money, more yachts can be built. With more money, you can't build more Biebers. And given that music is especially easy to copy with the internet, it doesn't follow that their popularity will decline, it simply means that fans will be limited to only watching via TV or the internet rather than being able to attend concerts. Likew…

Yachts aren't scarce? I've never seen one just lying around! Sorry I am missing your point there.

Money is the means to prioritize needs in a world of scarcity. If everyone just had more money it would instantly become worth less (not worthless).

You are conflating the live entertainment market and the recorded entertainment market. People will still want to see live music even if it is not some blockbuster name.

Besides, when the rubber meets the road every big name concert I've been to at a stadium size venue is essentially the same as watching a recording because you just watch the big screen anyways.

If you really want the best live experience you just book the artist for your birthday gala. Do you think we should all be able to do that too?

Re: Ask HN: Side projects that are making money, but you'd not talk about them?

#156

Post by xnorswap »

culturestate wrote: post #136
xnorswap wrote: post #106

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Nor is OP if you take their 20% discount into account. Scalping tickets designed to be heavily discounted for fans, then re-selling them to anyone for profit is scummy even if the price still comes under the non-fan price. At best you're just denying other fans the chance to get discounts for your own profit.

OP bought one set of season tickets to their favorite baseball team, went to the games they wanted to see, and sold tickets to the games they didn’t want to attend to other fans for less than face value and (presumably) without the outrageous fees that you’d pay at Ticketmaster, et al. Every casual season ticket holder does this, but most of us don’t systematize it - we just send messages to our group chats, and if n…

Perhaps I'm mis-reading the plural here, but how many season tickets do you consider a "set"?

Given OP bragged about seeing "6-7 games for FREE", it implies a lot of profit was made on the rest of the re-sold tickets.

There's a big difference between being a season ticket holder and buying multiple season tickets for the purpose of reselling and subsidising your own ticket.

Re: Ask HN: Side projects that are making money, but you'd not talk about them?

#157

Post by bko »

sarojmoh1 wrote: post #49
MattyMc wrote: post #14

I staked $15k, bought season tickets for my favourite baseball team, wrote an electron app to auto-price and market those tickets under face value. We ended up going to 6-7 games for free, sat in MUCH better seats than we ever could have afforded to, and had access to playoff tickets at face value. Further, my friends had access to great seats at reasonable prices and I avoided having to buy from resale sites (who I…

Impressive! How long did it take to write. You seem to have a ton of integrations?

If you're thinking about doing this I would recommend doing it by hand for a while to understand the intricacies of the market and pricing dynamics. Only after that can you think about automating some of the stuff. It still may not be worth it because the cost of mistakes is high, development time could be long and honestly it might just be easier to eyeball and keep track of prices and inventory than putting in all that upfront work. In my experience you have to be very confident and experienced to automate something like that with real money at stake.

Re: Ask HN: Side projects that are making money, but you'd not talk about them?

#158

Post by xnorswap »

macinjosh wrote: post #155
xnorswap wrote: post #138

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Yachts aren't inherently scarce, they're just expensive to build and maintain. With more money, more yachts can be built. With more money, you can't build more Biebers. And given that music is especially easy to copy with the internet, it doesn't follow that their popularity will decline, it simply means that fans will be limited to only watching via TV or the internet rather than being able to attend concerts. Likew…

Yachts aren't scarce? I've never seen one just lying around! Sorry I am missing your point there. Money is the means to prioritize needs in a world of scarcity. If everyone just had more money it would instantly become worth less (not worthless). You are conflating the live entertainment market and the recorded entertainment market. People will still want to see live music even if it is not some blockbuster name. Bes…

No, yachts aren't scarce. If there was greater demand for yachts then people could build more yachts and increase supply.

They are expensive, but that is different to scarce.

They especially aren't inherently scarce, which is what I actually said. You missed out the most important word.

There is a natural scarcity to top sports teams or top music artists. Artists can't be cloned and there can only be one champions league final each year.

Re: Ask HN: Side projects that are making money, but you'd not talk about them?

#159

Post by andreilys »

bko wrote: post #152
xnorswap wrote: post #78

Earlier quoted context omitted.

So you're a ticket scalper? That's nothing something to be proud of. You say your friends detest resale sites but it sounds like you just became one yourself unless I'm misunderstanding what was happening here.

Scalping is necessary for a lot of events. For instance, a few years back concert sales used to sell a year ahead of time. Who decides they want to go to a concert a year from now? So after a few days they're all sold out to scalpers. Maybe without scalpers they would get sold out by maybe 6 months. But who plans to go to a concert 6 months from now? It's unreasonable. So the alternative is to never get to go to conc…

Scalpers buy with the intention of flipping tickets for higher prices.

They are effectively rent seeking parasites that distort the market and make things worst for regular people.

There’s nothing wrong with reselling tickets if something comes up, but if you buy up bulk tickets to flip them for profit that is scummy behavior.

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