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CAPTCHAs are over (in ticketing)

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Re: CAPTCHAs are over (in ticketing)

#251

Post by carlosjobim »

kbenson wrote: post #182
bko wrote: post #161

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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…

It's much more complicated (and worse) than that. Ticketmaster reserves some seats during sale to be dynamic pricing, which they start higher than normal and then depending on demand and what they see on the secondary market they re-price those as the initial sale or presale is ongoing, just minutes after it starts. Also, promoters, artists and venues might get their own allotment of tickets to do with as they want,…

> That's been done for a long time and you can still get around it if the margin is good enough. You just have to either want to go to the event yourself or be willing to one ticket out of the maximum you can purchase as the cost of doing business.

You tie each ticket to the name of that specific attendee. The ticket buyer doesn't even have to get a ticket for himself. This is bullet proof, unless scalpers can convince their customers to make a fake ID to attend.

> not everyone actually knows who they're going to invite for sure at time of purchase

Then wait with your purchase until you have figured it out.

Re: CAPTCHAs are over (in ticketing)

#252

Post by section_me »

Spooky23 wrote: post #235
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…

Don’t worry, there’s no greedy, rent-seeking rock that hasn’t been overturned. Your idea would cost them way too much money. Since we’ve embraced scalping as a legal business model, Ticketmaster makes money on all sides of most transactions. It’s in their interest to for you to have maximum anxiety and buy as early as possible to increase the odds that you’ll resell. The bots and scrapers aren’t black hat, Ticketmast…

Sounds like Valve/Steam and the CS:GO gambling.

Re: CAPTCHAs are over (in ticketing)

#253

Post by timshell »

metladsl wrote: post #199
timshell wrote: post #173

I'm a founder in this space (www.roundtable.ai; YC S23) Behavior is a big missing link. Many CAPTCHA services (including Google reCAPTCHA v3) claim to use behavioral analyses, but you can disprove this using Operator to fill out a form and see reCAPTCHA and other bot detection systems flag it as a human. At Roundtable, we rely on first-order behavioral markers (keystroke, mouse, scroll, click) etc. When first-order a…

that's not entirely true. reCAPTCHA v3 relies on your Google account as a signal and what activities it has performed out in the wild. It's not exactly privacy-conscious, but certainly behavioral.

Here's a GIF where reCAPTCHA v3 can't detect Operator: https://x.com/_magrawal/status/1925543620217905641

'Behavioral' is loosely defined, but it seems like the behavioral tells of Operator are quite simple

Re: CAPTCHAs are over (in ticketing)

#254

Post by timshell »

_rami_ wrote: post #188
timshell wrote: post #173

I'm a founder in this space (www.roundtable.ai; YC S23) Behavior is a big missing link. Many CAPTCHA services (including Google reCAPTCHA v3) claim to use behavioral analyses, but you can disprove this using Operator to fill out a form and see reCAPTCHA and other bot detection systems flag it as a human. At Roundtable, we rely on first-order behavioral markers (keystroke, mouse, scroll, click) etc. When first-order a…

(Author here) Interesting! How do you differentiate between a bot and a screenreader user? Both won't move their mouse, scroll, etc but only send a single click event

Yup, we had this with open-end analysis (see: https://www.producthunt.com/stories/how-to-detect-ai-content...)

We had some people use voice software to fill in survey responses. This flagged computer-generated assistance.

Generally speaking, it'll be more than a single click event (e.g. see https://x.com/_magrawal/status/1925985289568211168)

Re: CAPTCHAs are over (in ticketing)

#255

Post by metladsl »

timshell wrote: post #253
metladsl wrote: post #199

Earlier quoted context omitted.

that's not entirely true. reCAPTCHA v3 relies on your Google account as a signal and what activities it has performed out in the wild. It's not exactly privacy-conscious, but certainly behavioral.

Here's a GIF where reCAPTCHA v3 can't detect Operator: https://x.com/_magrawal/status/1925543620217905641 'Behavioral' is loosely defined, but it seems like the behavioral tells of Operator are quite simple

bot protection, and specially sophisticated bot protection systems like recaptcha and shape security really kick in at scale. there'll be no obvious signs you're detected until you try to scale up your automations.

Re: CAPTCHAs are over (in ticketing)

#256

Post by babush »

lentil_soup wrote: post #231
majani wrote: post #227

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Two big leaps in your answer: 1. that the person paying more is rich and 2. that the person paying more likely doesn't care about the band The way I see it, it is also highly likely that the person paying more is of average income and just convinced themselves to pay more because they are superfans

ah, I tried to avoid that leap with the "it doesn't matter" but probably didn't come across properly. The point I'm making is that market value reduces the problem to just money which is being taunted as a magic solution, which might work in some cases but market value doesn't exist in a vacuum and it has side effects. As the topic being discussed is culture it introduces a lot of biases into society that I would fin…

Thanks for the comment. Couldn't have said it better. Also, good point about Ticketmaster. One seller, incomparable goods.

Re: CAPTCHAs are over (in ticketing)

#257

Post by mixmastamyk »

bsder wrote: post #151
EGreg wrote: post #146

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Let’s put busting the ticketmaster monopoly to the side for a second, and look at the issue regardless of players If you want to remove scalpers, just make sure tickets are non-transferrable and run an auction for price discovery. I built it on the blockchain years ago.

You can't put Ticketmaster aside precisely because Ticketmaster likes scalpers. They don't want to shut down scalpers. Hell, for all I know, Ticketmaster might actually BE the scalpers (talk about paranoia ... but, hey, vertical integration for the win). Consequently, even if there are "technical" solutions to scalpers, the socio-political aspects prevent the solution from being deployed.

TM solved this already, five years ago with their digital tix platform. They got rid of physical tickets, implemented auction pricing for the best seats, and took over the reseller market as well. They became the scalpers and took their revenue.

Re: CAPTCHAs are over (in ticketing)

#258

Post by johnisgood »

lentil_soup wrote: post #231
majani wrote: post #227

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Two big leaps in your answer: 1. that the person paying more is rich and 2. that the person paying more likely doesn't care about the band The way I see it, it is also highly likely that the person paying more is of average income and just convinced themselves to pay more because they are superfans

ah, I tried to avoid that leap with the "it doesn't matter" but probably didn't come across properly. The point I'm making is that market value reduces the problem to just money which is being taunted as a magic solution, which might work in some cases but market value doesn't exist in a vacuum and it has side effects. As the topic being discussed is culture it introduces a lot of biases into society that I would fin…

Those repercussions are essentially just a form of market feedback through demand contraction, i.e. it is the inevitable result of human action under conditions of scarcity and subjective preference, a natural outcome. The market would correct itself. If no one goes to Ticketmaster, someone else could (and if there is demand (among other things), most likely will) take its place, and they will no longer be a monopoly, simply put.

Re: CAPTCHAs are over (in ticketing)

#259

Post by const_cast »

landl0rd wrote: post #180
const_cast wrote: post #94

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Maybe if we do this then those sites will be disincentivized from doing all the tracking. Because consumer's will get their bill, say "what the fuck", and go to a competitor.

You're attributing to avg consumer a much higher degree of both tech-savviness and market power than is realistic.

Consumers should learn tech-savviness and I don't think I'm attributing too much.

Phone bills used to be really complicated with minutes and long distance and cross country. And consumers learned and adjusted their behaviors to reduce their bills.

Consumers are stupid but not that stupid.

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