Hacker News Board Hacker News, browsed like a classic message board
Live data from Hacker News

US Justice Department to seek breakup of Live Nation-Ticketmaster

bloomberg.com

Post reply on HN
Print view View original

211–220 of 319 posts

Re: US Justice Department to seek breakup of Live Nation-Ticketmaster

#211

Post by zeroonetwothree »

ryandrake wrote: post #193
bigstrat2003 wrote: post #185

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Of course it's feasible. Nobody is saying "go to Europe", they are saying to not go to concerts. To effect change, you have to make sacrifices.

Exactly. This is not a food company. We're talking about a product (live event tickets) that is totally optional and which nobody has to buy. This should be the simplest "vote with your wallet" scenario ever. If everyone collectively stopped buying the tickets, they'd either be out of business or be forced to change their practices. People like their bands more than they dislike Ticketmaster, so TM is not going to vo…

Talk is cheap but no one actually wants to make any real (if very minor) sacrifice. Not really surprising…

Re: US Justice Department to seek breakup of Live Nation-Ticketmaster

#212

Post by zeroonetwothree »

ajdude wrote: post #162
ryandrake wrote: post #110

This is great news but : Please also stop giving Ticketmaster your money. Every dollar you voluntarily give them (for a totally optional product, I might add) encourages them to continue their horrible practices. "Ticketmaster is such a terrible company!" he says as he buys more concert tickets from them.

It's easy to say that but a lot of the venues Exclusively use Ticketmaster as the official way to buy tickets for their shows. I called one, and they said to go online or pay at the door and hope There are seats left.

No one is forced to go see a concert. Somehow millions of people survive without doing it.

Re: US Justice Department to seek breakup of Live Nation-Ticketmaster

#213

Post by zeroonetwothree »

ldoughty wrote: post #62
nickff wrote: post #28

Earlier quoted context omitted.

What theory is this from, some sort of administrative state theory? This has never been the case in any executive branch that I'm aware of.

"I want you to make sure this case goes nowhere, can you do that?" "No!" Fires leadership "I want you to make sure this case goes nowhere, can you do that?" "You got it!" Hires There certainly is some of this every administrative change over.

How well did that work out for Nixon?

Re: US Justice Department to seek breakup of Live Nation-Ticketmaster

#214

Post by kelnos »

vikingerik wrote: post #91
julianeon wrote: post #16

If Live Nation-Ticketmaster is not a monopoly then there is no such thing as a monopoly.

The monopoly is really the artists, who then delegate to the venues. Like, Bruce Springsteen ticket prices are high because only he is Bruce Springsteen and nobody else is. The real monopoly is on being Bruce Springsteen . Prices are high because of supply and demand for that artist ; Bruce Springsteen can only put on so many shows for so many seats and there is far more demand than that, no matter who is selling the…

> The market is set by what customers will pay [...] The Internet hivemind will always think it's entitled to ignore the laws of supply and demand

And this is why "the market" isn't perfect, and flat-out sucks for some things. It doesn't have to be this way. Springsteen should be able to say "I want to charge $40 per ticket so my loyal fans, no matter what their financial situation, can see me perform", without having to deal with the scum of the earth buying up those tickets and reselling them for $300 each. (Whether or not he would want to do this is another question.)

The funny thing is that this setup is perfectly possible now that we have all this digital infrastructure. Back when tickets were just a piece of paper that people bought anonymously from a box office, it was damn near impossible to stop people from scalping them. Today we can tie a ticket to a person's real name, and check IDs at the venue. We can prohibit ticket transfers, or at least require that they be done via the same marketplace where they were purchased, so they can only be resold for the amount they were originally paid for.

Supply and demand are only laws when you allow a market to set prices, instead of letting a the seller price how they want, and sell directly to only their final end customers.

Re: US Justice Department to seek breakup of Live Nation-Ticketmaster

#215

Post by zeroonetwothree »

dylan604 wrote: post #38
nickff wrote: post #28

Earlier quoted context omitted.

What theory is this from, some sort of administrative state theory? This has never been the case in any executive branch that I'm aware of.

Exactly this. The first few days in office, a new POTUS will typically use executive orders specifically to reverse policies the previous administration put in place.

EO cannot be used to drop pending litigation. It would require a different mechanism

Re: US Justice Department to seek breakup of Live Nation-Ticketmaster

#216

Post by zeroonetwothree »

dclowd9901 wrote: post #129
dylan604 wrote: post #7

What's the typical turn time for a case like this from the time it is filed to the time it is actually in front of a judge/jury? This particular administration only has a guaranteed relevance of about 7 months. It could get extended, or it could get replaced and then cases like this would most likely get dropped. So, why bring it now?

> relevance of about 7 months Okay, buddy. Regardless of your political leanings, Biden himself extended a deeply reviled policy on handling border refugees. I think the “cooler” view is that they’re just figureheads.

Theory of the median voter and all that

Re: US Justice Department to seek breakup of Live Nation-Ticketmaster

#217

Post by zeroonetwothree »

throwaway5959 wrote: post #147

If they don’t my wife and I are just going to stop going to shows that use TicketMaster/Live Nation. Any more a third of the ticket price is fees. Not worth it.

Why haven’t you stopped already then?

Re: US Justice Department to seek breakup of Live Nation-Ticketmaster

#218

Post by fastball »

zeroonetwothree wrote: post #206
julianeon wrote: post #16

If Live Nation-Ticketmaster is not a monopoly then there is no such thing as a monopoly.

Merely being a monopoly is not sufficient to warrant antitrust action.

Live Nation / Ticketmaster is also an excellent example of a bad for consumers monopoly.

Re: US Justice Department to seek breakup of Live Nation-Ticketmaster

#219

Post by zeroonetwothree »

bell-cot wrote: post #10
xenospn wrote: post #3

Finally. As someone who is active in the local music scene, I’ve spent thousands on junk fees over the years. Not sure why it has taken this long.

if( $Voters_Apathetic && ( $Political_Donations_From_Monopolists > $Political_Donations_From_Antimonopolists ) ) then { ...

It’s true but that first condition does have a lot of weight behind it

Re: US Justice Department to seek breakup of Live Nation-Ticketmaster

#220

Post by kelnos »

MyFedora wrote: post #197
its_ethan wrote: post #72

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I've always wondered what government funding would look like if taxpayers could allocate their tax dollars at their own discretion. I don't think it would be all that functional in practice, but the idea of it seems interesting.

Sounds like any government with little to no taxes to me. Do you want anything ? Pay for it. No subsidized social services. No nothing. Pay up.

I think the idea would be that the government would collect the same amount of taxes, but the taxpayers would get to directly allocate their portion where they want it to go. They couldn't decide to not pay taxes at all, or even pay less.
Post reply on HN