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With NFT, blockchain proponents have argued that ticket trading is a really good usecase, and could maybe lessen the grip of the likes of Ticketmaster I think

by audunw 5y ago

With NFT, blockchain proponents have argued that ticket trading is a really good usecase, and could maybe lessen the grip of the likes of Ticketmaster I think the last episode of Last Week Tonight really shed light on why Blockchain can't really solve real-world problems like that. The problem isn't a technical problem. It'd be easy to solve the problem of ticked distribution/resale without blockchain if the concert vendors actually wanted. But now Ticketmaster owns most of those, so you can't solve it easily even if blockchains would help anyway. And you really can't solve the problem of scalping without tying tickets/accounts to a verified national ID, which is a political problem. I think blockchain is potentially a huge detriment to solving real-world problems.. because it tricks smart people into thinking "you apply blockchain, and then all these problems are magically solved", rather than actually working with other people on the actual social, economic and political problems we need to solve to make real progress.

IanCal 5y ago
> And you really can't solve the problem of scalping without tying tickets/accounts to a verified national ID, which is a political problem. I'm not sure I understand that. You could tie it to something within a smaller group (e.g. tickets can only be transferred to people who have bought the bands album, or only to verified accounts that the vendor approves). I would also be surprised if there wasn't a ZK way of doing some kind of KYC like check that you are able to prove you have ID and tie that to an account _without_ making the link between the two public.
- UncleMeat 5y ago
  This feels like a worse thing to me. “You can sell this thing to people, but only people who have done some other sort of on chain transaction” opens the door for a huge mess. “You can sell to people who aren’t a member of a union.” “You can sell to people who never donated money to the ACLU.” “You can sell to people who don’t own a gun.” Is that the direction we really want?
- acdha 5y ago
  The problem is that you need to link what's checked at the door with the online trail. If you only allowed people holding the band's CD to enter, that'd definitely work but it's just turning a different physical object into the ticket. You could try to have a trusted third party verify ID and only allow registered accounts to participate in the resale market (Ticketmaster sells this service) but at that point the blockchain is, as usual, not adding anything other than overhead because the trust depends on that third-party and the venue's staff checking ID at the door (otherwise you'd find people on Craigslist paying people to register, get their ID checked, and letting the scalpers use their account).
deleted 5y ago
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acdha 5y ago
> The problem isn't a technical problem. It'd be easy to solve the problem of ticked distribution/resale without blockchain if the concert vendors actually wanted. But now Ticketmaster owns most of those, so you can't solve it easily even if blockchains would help anyway. Also since Ticketmaster merged with Live Nation it's not just ticket sales but also concert promotion and artist management, so even if blockchains were useful for ticket sales it would be hard to get traction because any venue which tried to cut them out would also find that a large number of popular performers wouldn't play at their venue: https://www.nytimes.com/2018/04/01/arts/music/live-nation-ticketmaster.html https://www.nytimes.com/2018/04/01/arts/music/live-nation-ti... > I think blockchain is potentially a huge detriment to solving real-world problems.. because it tricks smart people into thinking "you apply blockchain, and then all these problems are magically solved", rather than actually working with other people on the actual social, economic and political problems we need to solve to make real progress. This is a very important point, amplified by the built-in conflicts of interest caused by turning the tech layer into a financial instrument. Many blockchain proponents are capable of reasoning through complex problems but doing so means that they are guaranteed to be leaving money on the table compared to their less ethical peers and since the only way their tokens have value is by talking them up there's even a strong disincentive to acknowledging when other people are selling something they can't deliver.

by audunw 5y ago

IanCal 5y ago

> And you really can't solve the problem of scalping without tying tickets/accounts to a verified national ID, which is a political problem. I'm not sure I understand that. You could tie it to something within a smaller group (e.g. tickets can only be transferred to people who have bought the bands album, or only to verified accounts that the vendor approves). I would also be surprised if there wasn't a ZK way of doing some kind of KYC like check that you are able to prove you have ID and tie that to an account _without_ making the link between the two public.

UncleMeat 5y ago
This feels like a worse thing to me. “You can sell this thing to people, but only people who have done some other sort of on chain transaction” opens the door for a huge mess. “You can sell to people who aren’t a member of a union.” “You can sell to people who never donated money to the ACLU.” “You can sell to people who don’t own a gun.” Is that the direction we really want?
acdha 5y ago
The problem is that you need to link what's checked at the door with the online trail. If you only allowed people holding the band's CD to enter, that'd definitely work but it's just turning a different physical object into the ticket. You could try to have a trusted third party verify ID and only allow registered accounts to participate in the resale market (Ticketmaster sells this service) but at that point the blockchain is, as usual, not adding anything other than overhead because the trust depends on that third-party and the venue's staff checking ID at the door (otherwise you'd find people on Craigslist paying people to register, get their ID checked, and letting the scalpers use their account).

deleted 5y ago

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acdha 5y ago

> The problem isn't a technical problem. It'd be easy to solve the problem of ticked distribution/resale without blockchain if the concert vendors actually wanted. But now Ticketmaster owns most of those, so you can't solve it easily even if blockchains would help anyway. Also since Ticketmaster merged with Live Nation it's not just ticket sales but also concert promotion and artist management, so even if blockchains were useful for ticket sales it would be hard to get traction because any venue which tried to cut them out would also find that a large number of popular performers wouldn't play at their venue: https://www.nytimes.com/2018/04/01/arts/music/live-nation-ticketmaster.html https://www.nytimes.com/2018/04/01/arts/music/live-nation-ti... > I think blockchain is potentially a huge detriment to solving real-world problems.. because it tricks smart people into thinking "you apply blockchain, and then all these problems are magically solved", rather than actually working with other people on the actual social, economic and political problems we need to solve to make real progress. This is a very important point, amplified by the built-in conflicts of interest caused by turning the tech layer into a financial instrument. Many blockchain proponents are capable of reasoning through complex problems but doing so means that they are guaranteed to be leaving money on the table compared to their less ethical peers and since the only way their tokens have value is by talking them up there's even a strong disincentive to acknowledging when other people are selling something they can't deliver.