11–20 of 52 posts
Earlier quoted context omitted.
> We only like the free market for some activities. As we should... the free market is not a cure-all, it's good for some things, poor for others.
People buy up all the Bruce Springsteen tickets and try to charge 5x the face value - outrage People buy up all the houses, "meh"
If these were concert or sports tickets the people doing it would be called "scalpers". The world is a curious place, full of contradiction and wonder. We only like the free market for some activities.
Scalpers provide liquidity, like most arbitrageurs. If reselling tickets was impossible and the price remained the same, then people who didn't manage to get one would be out of luck; now, they can pay more and still get one. Scalping is only possible when the market value of the ticket is more than the price charged, which means the demand will outstrip the supply.
For example, you say "If reselling tickets was impossible and the price remained the same, then people who didn't manage to get one would be out of luck; now, they can pay more and still get one.”
But if there is a fixed supply of tickets, then there are a fixed number of people getting tickets. All you are changing is which people get the tickets.
Yes, people with more money and less time to stand in line or whatever will get a ticket. Yay! But people with less money can no longer stand in line and get a ticket. Boo?
Earlier quoted context omitted.
> We only like the free market for some activities. As we should... the free market is not a cure-all, it's good for some things, poor for others.
People buy up all the Bruce Springsteen tickets and try to charge 5x the face value - outrage People buy up all the houses, "meh"
> People buy up all the houses, “meh"
If these were concert or sports tickets the people doing it would be called "scalpers". The world is a curious place, full of contradiction and wonder. We only like the free market for some activities.
Scalpers provide liquidity, like most arbitrageurs. If reselling tickets was impossible and the price remained the same, then people who didn't manage to get one would be out of luck; now, they can pay more and still get one. Scalping is only possible when the market value of the ticket is more than the price charged, which means the demand will outstrip the supply.
Earlier quoted context omitted.
Scalpers provide liquidity, like most arbitrageurs. If reselling tickets was impossible and the price remained the same, then people who didn't manage to get one would be out of luck; now, they can pay more and still get one. Scalping is only possible when the market value of the ticket is more than the price charged, which means the demand will outstrip the supply.
So, that doesn't address his point at all.
I think the analogy here with Wall St is apples and oranges. In Wall st, the security traded is fungible. Here in the ad world, an ad view could be high quality or lower quality. It could be a bot or a human looking to buy something. I am an engineer who spent 12 years in the ad tech industry. This problem is especially acute in the online video ad side where dollars are exchanged based on views and CPMs, not someone…
This article uses very odd language. Traders buying and reselling at a higher rate “could be distorting the markets and removing the efficiency that we’re supposed to see through real-time bidding,” he said. By definition successful arbitrage makes the market more efficient - it brings prices closer together (making the cheaper exchange more expensive and the more expensive one cheaper). Furthermore, arbitragers in a…
Agreed. As header bidding and arbitrage proliferate, we also see ad tech companies targeting the supply side of the equation: with services that help publishers understand how well the header bidding product is performing, which ads work and which dont, and how viewers engage with their site. As pubs are getting more information into the ad selection process, losing exchanges will have to adjust the quality or lower the prices of their ad supply.
Earlier quoted context omitted.
Scalpers provide liquidity, like most arbitrageurs. If reselling tickets was impossible and the price remained the same, then people who didn't manage to get one would be out of luck; now, they can pay more and still get one. Scalping is only possible when the market value of the ticket is more than the price charged, which means the demand will outstrip the supply.
“Scalpers make Benefit X possible” says nothing about whether “Scalpers create Harm Y.” For example, you say "If reselling tickets was impossible and the price remained the same, then people who didn't manage to get one would be out of luck; now, they can pay more and still get one.” But if there is a fixed supply of tickets, then there are a fixed number of people getting tickets. All you are changing is which peopl…
To be precise, you're allocating the tickets to those who value them the most, under the objective criteria of "who's willing to pay the most for them" (which may not be fair, but in the same way that capitalism favors those capable of getting money).
>But people with less money can no longer stand in line and get a ticket. Boo?
Those people value their tickets less than the people who actually get them. If you're only willing to pay X for a ticket, and someone else will pay Y>X, then the situation where you get a ticket for X and they don't isn't Pareto optimal; you'd prefer to sell your ticket for Y, and they'd prefer to buy your ticket for Y. (This does assume something about utility of money, which isn't strictly justified. To wit, I'm assuming that an unwillingness to pay more than X<Y for something implies a willingness to sell it for Y after you've gotten it. For X and Y sufficiently far apart, this should be true, but it might not be if they're close. On the other hand, if they're close then the harm here is very low.)
I think the analogy here with Wall St is apples and oranges. In Wall st, the security traded is fungible. Here in the ad world, an ad view could be high quality or lower quality. It could be a bot or a human looking to buy something. I am an engineer who spent 12 years in the ad tech industry. This problem is especially acute in the online video ad side where dollars are exchanged based on views and CPMs, not someone…
The similarities lie in the real-time nature of trading systems in both sectors.
If these were concert or sports tickets the people doing it would be called "scalpers". The world is a curious place, full of contradiction and wonder. We only like the free market for some activities.
Scalpers provide liquidity, like most arbitrageurs. If reselling tickets was impossible and the price remained the same, then people who didn't manage to get one would be out of luck; now, they can pay more and still get one. Scalping is only possible when the market value of the ticket is more than the price charged, which means the demand will outstrip the supply.
No
There are two reasons why people can't get a ticket:
- Fans bought all the tickets, limited places so the only way you could get them is if someone gives up. Nothing wrong in reselling a ticket for the price you paid for them or less
- Scalpers bought all the tickets. This is the main reason why today you can't get a ticket. Because they get on the queue and buy all of them before the fans had a chance to even get it.
So the problem of "you can't get a ticket" is not solved by scalpers, it is caused by them