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In a proper market, it is impossible to resell because the sales price is the production price. So if the free-market price of the ticket is higher than the sal

In a proper market, it is impossible to resell because the sales price is the production price. So if the free-market price of the ticket is higher than the sales price, people should be producing additional Woodstocks until the prices match. At which point there is no point in being a scalper anymore. Scalping is only an issue if the sales price of products is artificially depressed.

dmitriid 5y ago
Ah yes. The magical "click my fingers and there's a new Woodstock every time someone raises a price" free-market.
mellavora 5y ago
I didn't realize it was that easy to produce another Woodstock, or that the only purpose of music and festivals was profit maximization/economic equilibrium. Silly me.
- FeepingCreature 5y ago
  The whole point of capitalism is that economic equilibrium is also value equilibrium. So if you think it's good to have a Woodstock, unless you like artificial scarcity, you should think that having two Woodstocks is approximately twice as good. Now maybe you cannot produce another Woodstock, like there's some inherently limited resource like management effort or willingness or space or licenses, but that's the idea. (I don't think that the capitalist ideal matches reality. But you should at least get the idea if you're gonna disagree.)
  - dmitriid 5y ago
    https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=30776666 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=30776666 Free market as imagined by libertarians can only exist in the presence of unlimited resources and magic.
    - jcbrand 5y ago
      You have it backwards. Markets exist because of scarcity, not because of abundance. If something is available in unlimited abundance, there's no need of a market for it.
      - dmitriid 5y ago
        I don't think I got it backwards. This is the original statement: "In a proper market, it is impossible to resell because the sales price is the production price. So if the free-market price of the ticket is higher than the sales price, people should be producing additional Woodstocks until the prices match". The only free market where this is possible is a magical place where there are unlimited resources and ability to create new Woodstocks at the snap of a finger.
        jcbrand 5y ago
        So you extrapolate from one HN comment to all libertarians? You are interpreting the original comment as uncharitably as possible. "Additional Woodstocks" can be easily interpreted as "additional concerts similar to Woodstock" without changing the meaning of the comment. Also, you don't need unlimited resources to create new concerts, and you don't need the "snap of a finger", you simply need people who are motivated to do so by virtue of the profit motive (as well as their love for music and live shows) incentivized through the price mechanism.
        dmitriid 5y ago
        > So you extrapolate from one HN comment to all libertarians? Yes. Because all of their notions of "one true free market" require unlimited resources and ability to immediately create anything from scratch. > can be easily interpreted as "additional concerts similar to Woodstock" Same thing, different attempt to argue semantics. > Also, you don't need unlimited resources to create new concerts, and you don't need the "snap of a finger", you simply need people who are motivated to do so by virtue of the profit motive I'll repeat this again for the fourth-fifth time in this thread. Literally thousands of concerts exist, "simply" driven by "people who are motivated to do so by virtue of the profit motive". And yet, Woodstock is Woodstock. And Sziget is Sziget etc. I wonder why.
happymellon 5y ago
> Scalping is only an issue if the sales price of products is artificially depressed. No offense, but you do not understand art. Yes, there are a lot of bands that could sell higher priced tickets but don't because they want to be accessable to everyone, not just people with money to burn.
- FeepingCreature 5y ago
  If they sold higher priced tickets, more bands would have incentive to tour. This would make live music more accessible, not less. Right now they're not accessible to everyone, they're accessible to rich people and a lottery of poor people.
  - oneeyedpigeon 5y ago
    How would higher priced tickets be more accessible to poor people?
    - jcbrand 5y ago
      Pricing is the way in which information about supply and demand is conveyed in a decentralized manner in a free market. When prices of a good or service goes up, it incentivises other manufacturers or service providers to produce more of that good or service, which increases supply and puts downward pressure on prices. So to answer your question, higher priced tickets increases supply, which causes lower priced tickets, which benefits poor people. Eventually prices reach a level where supply and demand match and (for example) concerts are as cheap as they can be given their cost and the demand in the market for them (including the demand from poor people). This EconTalk episode on price gouging during a natural disaster was very interesting, and somewhat related to this topic: https://www.econtalk.org/munger-on-price-gouging/ https://www.econtalk.org/munger-on-price-gouging/
      - dmitriid 5y ago
        There are literally thousands of concerts, and sporting events, and any other events that people buy tickets to. Guess why people still go to Sziget or Woodstock. Also guess why it's impossible to just click your fingers and pull an unlimited number of Woodstocks out of thin air.
tlamponi 5y ago
But Woodstock, or any other tickets are a limited resource by definition, the venue can cope with X amount of people there, where X is at max some area dependent value and can be limited further by safety measurements and/or law. So your "proper market" criteria doesn't really exist for anything but digital or virtual goods.

dmitriid 5y ago

Ah yes. The magical "click my fingers and there's a new Woodstock every time someone raises a price" free-market.

mellavora 5y ago

I didn't realize it was that easy to produce another Woodstock, or that the only purpose of music and festivals was profit maximization/economic equilibrium. Silly me.

FeepingCreature 5y ago
The whole point of capitalism is that economic equilibrium is also value equilibrium. So if you think it's good to have a Woodstock, unless you like artificial scarcity, you should think that having two Woodstocks is approximately twice as good. Now maybe you cannot produce another Woodstock, like there's some inherently limited resource like management effort or willingness or space or licenses, but that's the idea. (I don't think that the capitalist ideal matches reality. But you should at least get the idea if you're gonna disagree.)
- dmitriid 5y ago
  https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=30776666 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=30776666 Free market as imagined by libertarians can only exist in the presence of unlimited resources and magic.
  - jcbrand 5y ago
    You have it backwards. Markets exist because of scarcity, not because of abundance. If something is available in unlimited abundance, there's no need of a market for it.
    - dmitriid 5y ago
      I don't think I got it backwards. This is the original statement: "In a proper market, it is impossible to resell because the sales price is the production price. So if the free-market price of the ticket is higher than the sales price, people should be producing additional Woodstocks until the prices match". The only free market where this is possible is a magical place where there are unlimited resources and ability to create new Woodstocks at the snap of a finger.
      - jcbrand 5y ago
        So you extrapolate from one HN comment to all libertarians? You are interpreting the original comment as uncharitably as possible. "Additional Woodstocks" can be easily interpreted as "additional concerts similar to Woodstock" without changing the meaning of the comment. Also, you don't need unlimited resources to create new concerts, and you don't need the "snap of a finger", you simply need people who are motivated to do so by virtue of the profit motive (as well as their love for music and live shows) incentivized through the price mechanism.
        dmitriid 5y ago
        > So you extrapolate from one HN comment to all libertarians? Yes. Because all of their notions of "one true free market" require unlimited resources and ability to immediately create anything from scratch. > can be easily interpreted as "additional concerts similar to Woodstock" Same thing, different attempt to argue semantics. > Also, you don't need unlimited resources to create new concerts, and you don't need the "snap of a finger", you simply need people who are motivated to do so by virtue of the profit motive I'll repeat this again for the fourth-fifth time in this thread. Literally thousands of concerts exist, "simply" driven by "people who are motivated to do so by virtue of the profit motive". And yet, Woodstock is Woodstock. And Sziget is Sziget etc. I wonder why.

happymellon 5y ago

> Scalping is only an issue if the sales price of products is artificially depressed. No offense, but you do not understand art. Yes, there are a lot of bands that could sell higher priced tickets but don't because they want to be accessable to everyone, not just people with money to burn.

FeepingCreature 5y ago
If they sold higher priced tickets, more bands would have incentive to tour. This would make live music more accessible, not less. Right now they're not accessible to everyone, they're accessible to rich people and a lottery of poor people.
- oneeyedpigeon 5y ago
  How would higher priced tickets be more accessible to poor people?
  - jcbrand 5y ago
    Pricing is the way in which information about supply and demand is conveyed in a decentralized manner in a free market. When prices of a good or service goes up, it incentivises other manufacturers or service providers to produce more of that good or service, which increases supply and puts downward pressure on prices. So to answer your question, higher priced tickets increases supply, which causes lower priced tickets, which benefits poor people. Eventually prices reach a level where supply and demand match and (for example) concerts are as cheap as they can be given their cost and the demand in the market for them (including the demand from poor people). This EconTalk episode on price gouging during a natural disaster was very interesting, and somewhat related to this topic: https://www.econtalk.org/munger-on-price-gouging/ https://www.econtalk.org/munger-on-price-gouging/
    - dmitriid 5y ago
      There are literally thousands of concerts, and sporting events, and any other events that people buy tickets to. Guess why people still go to Sziget or Woodstock. Also guess why it's impossible to just click your fingers and pull an unlimited number of Woodstocks out of thin air.

tlamponi 5y ago

But Woodstock, or any other tickets are a limited resource by definition, the venue can cope with X amount of people there, where X is at max some area dependent value and can be limited further by safety measurements and/or law. So your "proper market" criteria doesn't really exist for anything but digital or virtual goods.