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CAPTCHAs are over (in ticketing)

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Re: CAPTCHAs are over (in ticketing)

#241

Post by EGreg »

pornel wrote: post #236
EGreg wrote: post #225

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That’s not true. The problem of whether the person actually has the money for the ticket. If it’s done by credit card then you have the problem of refunding so many people and getting a bad reputation with the middleman processor. See, unlike a blockchain, that middleman has policies that penalize legitimate price discovery mechanisms like auctions. So you have to take risks for no reason other than to appease a midd…

That's just an overcomplicated way of doing pre-authorization. Talk about decentralisation and anti-deplatforming makes no sense here. Concerts are a physical thing happening in the real world, organized by selected "centralized" entities. Venues can refuse to host an artist. Artist can "rug pull" by refusing to host. Imaginary tokens can't do anything about that, and we already have laws, contracts, and currencies t…

Card Network Rules: Payment processors and card networks have rules about the use of pre-authorizations. Excessive or inappropriate use can be flagged, potentially leading to penalties, holds on your account, or even termination of your merchant account. Customer Experience: Imagine a customer who participates in several auction bids and has a pre-authorization placed for each bid. This can lead to: Blocked Funds: A large amount of their credit limit could be temporarily blocked, making it difficult for them to use the card for other transactions. Confusion: Customers might be confused about multiple holds on their account, leading to inquiries and chargebacks. Negative Experience: A poor customer experience can hurt your reputation. Risk of Expiration & Release: If pre-authorizations expire, and the auction is not completed, you might have to re-authorize, which can be disruptive and annoying to the customer. False Availability of Funds: Since not all bidders will win, placing holds on all bidders' accounts gives a misleading view of how much funding you might actually have available to you. Chargebacks & Disputes: Confused customers with multiple pre-authorizations are more likely to dispute charges, which can hurt your merchant standing and reputation. Processor Scrutiny: A merchant running a high volume of pre-authorizations relative to actual sales could be perceived as risky behavior. Processors will scrutinize businesses with higher dispute rates and high pre-authorization-to-capture ratios.

Re: CAPTCHAs are over (in ticketing)

#242

Post by IgorPartola »

bugtodiffer wrote: post #239
kassner wrote: post #119

I can’t claim I’m the first one to think about this, but every time Ticketmaster shows up on HN I keep coming back to this idea: Sell the tickets with regressive price based on time. Sales starts say 2 months before event, initial price is truly exorbitant, say one million dollars. Price decreases linearly down to zero (or true cost price). At any point, people can see current price and the seats left. Now every pote…

Or maybe stop all the bullshit and sell the tickets at their real value. Ticketmaster should be destroyed!

You mean at like $3k/ticket for Taylor Swift nose bleeds?

Re: CAPTCHAs are over (in ticketing)

#243

Post by dataflow »

kbenson wrote: post #184
theamk wrote: post #172

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> it's obviously preferable to get paid for the entire tour on the day it's announced it's only obvious to "private equity" type people. There is energy in the concerts - and a lot of people go to live shows for that. Otherwise, one would listen to the recording / watch music videos instead - it is cheaper and the seats are nicer too. If the seats are half-empty, or only full of people who are ready to pay exorbitant…

>> it's obviously preferable to get paid for the entire tour on the day it's announced > it's only obvious to "private equity" type people. No, it's obvious. Anyone that has to choose between getting $100 right now or $100 trickled in over months would opt for it right now for many reasons (inflation, the ability it invest it, the ability to use if it needed for unexpected situation, etc). Wanting events to be popula…

> No, it's obvious. Anyone that has to choose between getting $100 right now or $100 trickled in over months would opt for it right now for many reasons (inflation, the ability it invest it, the ability to use if it needed for unexpected situation, etc).

I disagree? Even if your conclusion is somehow true, it seems in no way obvious, and so far as I can the reasoning doesn't make sense. You've left out two crucial factors:

- The assumption that it's $100 now vs. $100 later just seems unfounded. What if it's $100 now vs. $110 later? The payer is can factor in the time value of money, inflation, etc. just like you do; why would they completely ignore that and blindly pay the same amount they would at two different points in time?

- We're not talking about free money, we're talking about payment in exchange for work. You're taking out a loan that comes with obligations. You're going to have to pay it back if for whatever reason you can't do the work. Generally, the earlier you take the loan, the more unpredictable and thus the larger that risk is. Of course details matter here but it's not at all obvious ASAP is the optimal policy. And I don't know about you, but I sure as heck don't enjoy being perpetually in debt to someone. I'm not saying it's bad if you're fine with it, I'm saying it doesn't seem remotely true that everyone is fine with it.

Re: CAPTCHAs are over (in ticketing)

#244

Post by tsimionescu »

stavros wrote: post #134
kassner wrote: post #119

I can’t claim I’m the first one to think about this, but every time Ticketmaster shows up on HN I keep coming back to this idea: Sell the tickets with regressive price based on time. Sales starts say 2 months before event, initial price is truly exorbitant, say one million dollars. Price decreases linearly down to zero (or true cost price). At any point, people can see current price and the seats left. Now every pote…

The scalper problem is a mispricing problem: Scalpers are just arbitrageurs because ticket prices are artificially very low. If you want to fix that, you need to ask yourself "why are ticket prices artificially very low?" first. The answer probably isn't "artists/venues like leaving money on the table".

Are they mispriced? Or is it just hard to price goods where some people are willing to pay a MUCH higher premium than others? That is, if I can sell 5000 tickets at 10$ or 10 tickets at 1000$, the right price may just be 10$. And trying to find a way to convince those 10 people to pay the 1000$ they were willing to, in a way that doesn't affect my reputation too much, may just be too hard.

Re: CAPTCHAs are over (in ticketing)

#245

Post by sorz »

kassner wrote: post #119

I can’t claim I’m the first one to think about this, but every time Ticketmaster shows up on HN I keep coming back to this idea: Sell the tickets with regressive price based on time. Sales starts say 2 months before event, initial price is truly exorbitant, say one million dollars. Price decreases linearly down to zero (or true cost price). At any point, people can see current price and the seats left. Now every pote…

The time at which scalpers buy tickets becomes irrelevant. They can resell tickets at arbitrary-high-price + margin because buyer know they will receive refund for the exceed amount, thus pay only (final price + scalper margin) for the ticket eventually.

Bonus: buy ticket from scalpers after price settled, you will get a determined price, no more guessing and find inner peace.

The problem for scalpers is that if they buy too many tickets, the final price may become too high to be attractive for real buyers.

Re: CAPTCHAs are over (in ticketing)

#246

Post by carlosjobim »

I work professionally in ticketing with ticket sales system. The problem with scalpers is completely solved, and the only reason why scalpers can operate is because the artists and venues deliberately allow for it.

It's incredibly easy to remove scalpers:

Sell each ticket with a name attached, ask for ID at the door.

That's it. Whatever hacker argument against this you are thinking up right in this moment, it is just wrong.

"What if I don't know who I'm going to ask to go with me?" - Then buy your ticket once you've figured that out.

As for tickets that are so popular that servers can't handle the demand: Make a lottery and give people one day to sign up for the lottery.

Re: CAPTCHAs are over (in ticketing)

#247

Post by carlosjobim »

1propionyl wrote: post #31

A lot of overwrought digital solutions here and not the obvious one: Stop selling online. Sell the tickets at a small number of locations near and including the venue, with cashiers empowered to deny suspicious transactions. Could someone put together a small army of smurfs to buy up all the tickets in major cities? Sure. Could someone have someone on the inside sell them a block of tickets against policy? Sure. We c…

Scalping is a solved problem and only happens when artists and venues encourage it.

Your solution doesn't do anything against scalpers, on the contrary it encourages scalping even more.

Re: CAPTCHAs are over (in ticketing)

#248

Post by carlosjobim »

bko wrote: post #161
stavros wrote: post #134

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The scalper problem is a mispricing problem: Scalpers are just arbitrageurs because ticket prices are artificially very low. If you want to fix that, you need to ask yourself "why are ticket prices artificially very low?" first. The answer probably isn't "artists/venues like leaving money on the table".

Ticketmaster has it's own resale platform. It's able to double dip. They basically say tickets are relatively cheap and scalpers are the bad guys. They encourage the scalpers. Then they can resell using their own resale platform and they get fees on top of that. The fees on re-sellers are crazy, and they take fees from both seller and buyer. Seller Side: List price: $100 StubHub seller fee (15%): -$15 Seller receives…

> (you dump your tickets and let someone else pick them up at that exact moment).

Very easy to counteract, the venue just releases those tickets back for sale in batch at an unspecified date and time.

Re: CAPTCHAs are over (in ticketing)

#249

Post by carlosjobim »

bko wrote: post #161
stavros wrote: post #134

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The scalper problem is a mispricing problem: Scalpers are just arbitrageurs because ticket prices are artificially very low. If you want to fix that, you need to ask yourself "why are ticket prices artificially very low?" first. The answer probably isn't "artists/venues like leaving money on the table".

Ticketmaster has it's own resale platform. It's able to double dip. They basically say tickets are relatively cheap and scalpers are the bad guys. They encourage the scalpers. Then they can resell using their own resale platform and they get fees on top of that. The fees on re-sellers are crazy, and they take fees from both seller and buyer. Seller Side: List price: $100 StubHub seller fee (15%): -$15 Seller receives…

> They do other things that's baffling like selling tickets a year ahead of time, which is kind of weird considering very few people, even big fans, would be really on top of buying tickets a year out. It's obviously designed for scalpers.

Serious venues and artists do the same thing. It is to reward the early fans with the cheapest tickets and to get early cash flow. Nothing shady about it.

Re: CAPTCHAs are over (in ticketing)

#250

Post by sealeck »

Symbiote wrote: post #194
sealeck wrote: post #167

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This is not the proposal. The proposal is to ensure people's names match their tickets. Additionally, I think most people at concerts support security measures that would improve their safety and avoid a rerun of https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Manchester_Arena_bombing

How is checking names going to prevent terrorists with guns? The article isn't clear (as I'm not familiar with Manchester Arena and the names of the rooms) but a man was allowed in with a bomb in a bag. Showing id (or not) wouldn't have been the problem. (And incidentally, it's not required to show identification for flights within Europe's Schengen area.)

You have completely misread my comment; the point is that checking names would not be for security (it would be to prevent ticket scalping). As you have correctly identified, handling security threats is somewhat orthogonal to this - i.e. your claim is false. Large venues will inevitably have to introduce security screening irrespective of whether or not they match names and tickets.
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