Just got an alert this afternoon that a band I've always wanted to see was coming to town. Worst seats in the house were over $100, and they're not even that big of a band, nor playing at a huge venue. Ticketmaster can suck it

The free market will...snrk.. regulate it

ᕕ( ᐛ )ᕗ

I’ve never heard of stubHub but I think it’s a shame it’s not a gay porn site

Video is funny but fails to show that a bunch of people still pay for it, which is in large part why they keep doing it.

The whole point of Ticketmaster is to make you hate it rather than the artist.

Nah, the markup here was too low.

Don't forget Ticketmaster not only bought all the beer, they also bought the bar under a different name (live nation).

They also forgot to add in the option to immediately resell that beer to someone else in the bar without ever touching it yourself.

Serious question: why doesn't the market fix this?

Why isn't there another company that undercuts ticketmaster but just a little? That would (I would assume) create a "race to the bottom" between ticketmaster and that other company, reducing prices.

When it’s the only choice to see the band/team/play you’ve been wanting to see for years people will pay. It’s absolutely a monopoly and gets progressively worse every year, but they know they have consumer by the jewels

go ahead and start a competing company, see what happens. it's literally impossible for a number of reasons that i'm not going to get into.

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the answer you're looking for is that they maintain a monopoly. you could have easily googled that. if you still don't understand why a monopoly is insurmountable in a free market, then you need to go read about it.

> you could have easily googled that.

Maybe.

But another equally valid option is for me to use A DISCUSSION FORUM where people (you're not going to believe this) have discussions.

It is okay to ask literally any question ever in any thread on any topic on reddit. It's okay. There's nothing even a tiny bit wrong with doing that.

(a) you misinterpreted what I said (and now you're embarrassed that I called you out)

(b) you made a snarky response that makes you look like an asshole.

Now you're trying to defend both of those by saying I could google it. Nah. I'm gonna wait for a non-asshole to show up and have a polite discussion with them.

Because: you can't just start a company without capital. Then you have to try and buy your way in, and Ticketmaster has huge capital to waste on making sure you don't.

Like, what are you going to do? Show up outside a venue and ask kindly if they'll let you sell the tickets on your entirely unknown website?

The thing free market enthusiasts like to ignore is that all free markets tend towards monopolies. Because more money means more power. More power means more money. It will A L W A Y S end in monopolies.

The very function is that companies will fail, and the ones making the most money don't fail and will always be the only one left.

It's amazing really how so many don't understand such a basic concept.

Not just the consumer, it hurts those performing as well. It's not even a necessity like gasoline is if you live anywhere outside of a big city. So unless it's some kind of status thing, or one of those situations like loot boxes in gaming where only a small handful of big spenders are actually needed for it to be profitable... It's crazy they've managed to exploit it for as long as they have.

The only way the market fixes this is if consumers stop buying. They won't.

Because Live Nation the parent company also controls the venues too. So you can’t just start a ticket company to get around ticketmaster.

> you can't just start a company without capital.

...but that would be a problem for Ticketmaster too??

How did Ticketmaster get started??

My question isn't about starting a company. It's why nobody else has started one.

> you have to try and buy your way in, and Ticketmaster has huge capital to waste on making sure you don't.

This is what I'm wondering about. How exactly will they "make sure"

Who records in vertical? Honestly. This isn't 2008.

Shills and bots be downvoting