Earlier quoted context omitted.
There's probably a whole market of "notify me when (plane tickets get cheap, apartments look good, tickets go on sale, etc)"
If Amazon had a notification when product X dropped below price Y then not only would it allow people to track that something was now affordable to them, it would allow Amazon to feed back to manufacturers that they could sell N items if they dropped their price to Y.
Bot wars - The arms race of restaurant reservations in SF
81–90 of 167 posts
Re: Bot wars - The arms race of restaurant reservations in SF
#82Earlier quoted context omitted.
Yes, in todays technological society, people who understand technology have advantages. I don't see why that is surprising, given the website you're commenting on. Ultimately this is not about technology, it's about economics. Surely the restaurant should raise their prices until not enough people want to book 2 months in advance to make bots and make this an issue. Or PAX should raise their prices so they don't sell…
"Just raise the price" is an appropriate response to demand for a commodity, but it's an inappropriate response to these scenarios. For example: PAX is trying to build a community event. The target demographic is not "wealthy people who love games", it's "people who love games" Changing the price results in a different convention. Similarly, a popular $20 restaurant can't double their prices to keep demand manageable…
If PAX or anyone else wants to intentionally price something so that the demand is larger than available supply, then in any case the "effective price" will be raised so that supply matches the demand.
In effect, part of the "effective price" will be the monetary cost, and the other part of the price will be wasted time/emotions/connections/whatever that discrimiminates those who get the ticket from those who don't. This is basic, well researched economics, with plenty of real life examples in various countries, regimes and industries.
The common options include:
a) $x + significant time spent waiting in line - some wait in line and get nothing; some value their time a lot and don't attempt buying.
b) $x goes to the original supplier, $y goes to scalpers/touts/your employee bribes - the stuff gets sold at money market price, but someone else gets the difference;
c) lottery - either intentional lottery, where everybody has a chance of getting a ticket for $x despite that it's market worth is >$x; or an unintentional lottery, where random factors (showing up at the right time, getting a reservation that someone else cancelled) determine if you can or cannot get the ticket. In both cases, the "buyer" might be motivated to resell it if possible, since it's possible that he paid $20, he wouldn't go if it cost $100, but someone else wants to pay $100, so ...
d) (ab)use of advantages - political connections, bots, whatever; you buy at $x and sell at the market price.
In any case, (most) buyers don't get the intended effect of cheaper price; but the seller loses out. Only the middlemen benefit, without adding value. (In one sense, they add back the value that the seller reduced by mispricing)
I've seen what happens in USSR when the majority of economy functions this way - trust me, in most cases raising the price is actually the appropriate response; because otherwise there is so effing large amounts of effort&resources that is wasted - the seller gets $x, but the buyer anyway spends "market price" of $3x to compete with other buyers by giving $x of cash and $2x of wasted, unproductive effort.
Re: Bot wars - The arms race of restaurant reservations in SF
#83Earlier quoted context omitted.
Yes, in todays technological society, people who understand technology have advantages. I don't see why that is surprising, given the website you're commenting on. Ultimately this is not about technology, it's about economics. Surely the restaurant should raise their prices until not enough people want to book 2 months in advance to make bots and make this an issue. Or PAX should raise their prices so they don't sell…
...or adapt the site so it's not bot friendly instead of raising prices just to punish people.
Raising prices isn't just punishing people - it also increases supply, since if PAX would gain double revenue then it would incentivize both PAX to obtain larger facilities, and others to make more similar conventions more often so that more of people who want to go can actually do so.
Re: Bot wars - The arms race of restaurant reservations in SF
#84This is remarkable. Concert tickets are also being bought this way by bots for scalpers. Ebay sniper bots are commonly used. High Frequency trading is the high end this. Perhaps it is unavoidable, perhaps other means for selling things online should be sought out, text messages with semantic replies required or something?
I really don't get the outrage against scalpers. They're just buying commodity futures, taking a bet on the future value of the tickets. If the value goes up, they make a profit, if the band suddenly become unpopular or whatever they lose. We're in a capitalist system, the price you pay the scalpers is the "real" price of the concert: it's the law of supply-and-demand. Now, if scalpers win every time, this is an issu…
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Re: Bot wars - The arms race of restaurant reservations in SF
#85Earlier quoted context omitted.
Indeed this I do not understand, nor do I understand why bands sell tickets so cheaply when they can be resold by touts outside the door for many times that price.
Kid Rock is tired of scalpers taking tickets away from his biggest fans. One way to stop that: Raise ticket prices. If Kid Rock charged more for his tickets, scalpers wouldn't be able to sell them at such a big markup. But Kid Rock doesn't want to raise prices. "I don't want to break you by coming to see me, " he says. "I want to make as much money as I can, but I don't need to drive around in a tinted down Rolls-Roy…
That interview was a great summary of what's going on in the industry. Kid Rock realizes that keeping his die-hard fans happy works out better for him on the tour circuit, since they'll spend more on t-shirts and other things while they're at the show. If they have to pay $400 for a ticket, there's no budget left for a high-margin souvenir.
It's the internet age as well and he realizes that. The moment he tries to charge a market price for every ticket, he starts eroding his fan base.
Re: Bot wars - The arms race of restaurant reservations in SF
#86Soon - "Auction Sniper now supports urbanspoon! First 3 reservations are free!" There's something frustrating about reading this. Perhaps its that a technological advancement that was supposed to make life easier is being capitalized on by a small group of technically competent people, shutting out the average user. I was thinking of going to PAX next year a few hours ago and decided to do a bit of research. For this…
Yes, in todays technological society, people who understand technology have advantages. I don't see why that is surprising, given the website you're commenting on. Ultimately this is not about technology, it's about economics. Surely the restaurant should raise their prices until not enough people want to book 2 months in advance to make bots and make this an issue. Or PAX should raise their prices so they don't sell…
Interesting 20 minute podcast on this topic:
Kid Rock Takes On The Scalpers
http://www.npr.org/blogs/money/2013/06/25/195641030/episode-...
Summary
http://www.npr.org/blogs/money/2013/06/27/196277836/kid-rock...
1) More shows.
2) Beat the scalpers at their own game.
3) Go paperless.
4) Don't sell the first two rows.Re: Bot wars - The arms race of restaurant reservations in SF
#87Cool concept. Wonder if he could write a script to land a reservation at Dorsia. I think that might be asking a bit much, even for a bot.
Re: Bot wars - The arms race of restaurant reservations in SF
#88Earlier quoted context omitted.
Yes, in todays technological society, people who understand technology have advantages. I don't see why that is surprising, given the website you're commenting on. Ultimately this is not about technology, it's about economics. Surely the restaurant should raise their prices until not enough people want to book 2 months in advance to make bots and make this an issue. Or PAX should raise their prices so they don't sell…
Interesting 20 minute podcast on this topic: Kid Rock Takes On The Scalpers http://www.npr.org/blogs/money/2013/06/25/195641030/episode-... Summary http://www.npr.org/blogs/money/2013/06/27/196277836/kid-rock... 1) More shows. 2) Beat the scalpers at their own game. 3) Go paperless. 4) Don't sell the first two rows.
[deleted]
Re: Bot wars - The arms race of restaurant reservations in SF
#89Earlier quoted context omitted.
...or adapt the site so it's not bot friendly instead of raising prices just to punish people.
Raising prices isn't just punishing people - it also increases supply, since if PAX would gain double revenue then it would incentivize both PAX to obtain larger facilities, and others to make more similar conventions more often so that more of people who want to go can actually do so.
But the result of more people going is a side effect of raising prices; it shouldn't be the main reason. In fact if anything, prices are usually raised to decrease the number of people who pay out for it (ie exclusivity).
The issue here is bots, so the solution should be to make such reservation / booking sites unfriendly to bots. Then the event organisers / restaurants can choose to adjust their prices based on the actual demand and their long term vision instead of trying to play some silly price war with ticket touts.
Re: Bot wars - The arms race of restaurant reservations in SF
#90Earlier quoted context omitted.
If Amazon had a notification when product X dropped below price Y then not only would it allow people to track that something was now affordable to them, it would allow Amazon to feed back to manufacturers that they could sell N items if they dropped their price to Y.
I work for an online retailer, and every once in a while, we get an email from a customer asking if we could add a feature on the website to notify them when prices drop on items. Maybe we should start trial runs of this feature..
You could even get some additional engagement out of them:
o Send me an email if the price drops below $_____
o Send me an email and put 1 item in my shopping cart for me if the price drops below $_____