5 ms·

>Viagogo is a horrible company and has been scaming people in Switzerland as well as all over the world. I went to a very well-known university (in the US), an

>Viagogo is a horrible company and has been scaming people in Switzerland as well as all over the world. I went to a very well-known university (in the US), and they had business courses that literally invited speakers in that had startups that were ticket arbitrage. I was taken aback that they would be bragging about buying out all the tickets for an event and then charging more for them. Their response is something along the lines of "well first we are getting the 'real WTP' price from the consumer and second we sometimes buyout events that turn out bad and lose money, so it's fair!" But the whole time it was discussed by professors as if this was a great idea!

spookie 4y ago
Things like this just make me loose all respect for yhese degrees...
- quantum_magpie 4y ago
  Business degrees were about exploiting others since their inception, so they never had any basis for respect whatsoever.
  - mhuffman 4y ago
    What's more is that for any business degree at my uni, a "Business Ethics" course is required and at upper-levels an "Ethics and Compliance" course is required. However it is focused much more on not ripping off investors or being unintentionally racist or misogynist, and has no focus on, for example, charging a profit-maximizing price for insulin or arbitraging food from poor people, etc.
thatguy0900 4y ago
"second we sometimes buyout events that turn out bad and lose money, so it's fair!" Interesting, I always wondered why places seem to allow this. I guess this is almost like insurance for the event.
- mhuffman 4y ago
  Yes, it is only popular events/artists that complain and even then they don't complain too hard (see the very existence of Ticketmaster).
code_duck 4y ago
I don’t approve of it, but this seems like basic capitalist principles to me.
- mhuffman 4y ago
  I agree. Pure capitalism has some great benefits for entrepreneurial people, but for a whole society it can have some pretty negative bad effects.
  - d110af5ccf 4y ago
    Honestly I've never seen ticket arbitrage as a bad thing. These venues are selling below market price and then people get upset when the obvious thing happens. Essentially they are trying to operate using some sort of private club model where it's first come first served instead of supply and demand driven bidding. Yet they simultaneously want to sell these tickets on the open market. So what did they (and everyone else) expect would happen? I see ticket scalping as a natural and good outcome. If you want a private club then start a private club but honestly you will still have to deal with members attempting to scalp since you aren't charging market price and our broader economy uses more or less free markets.
    - mhuffman 4y ago
      >These venues are selling below market price Well that is one way to look at it. Let me offer you another perspective. Let's say that I send people to your town to buy up all the bread. All of it! Every brand, every size. Then I raise the price. Were the people before charging below market price, or did I just manipulate the market price and raise it? Now consider that it wasn't bread, but something like insulin or gas. Is that still the "correct" market price or am I forcing it?
      - d110af5ccf 4y ago
        That is either an unreasonable or a flawed analogy, depending on exactly what you meant. It is almost never reasonable to use essentials like food when the discussion is about luxuries. If by bread you meant specifically and only bread, then there is no issue. People will simply do without bread, perhaps buy pasta, you will be out a huge amount of money, things go about how you'd expect. In that case your analogy is flawed because you have not changed the market price. Instead you have lost yourself a lot of money. If by bread you meant "the food supply in general" then it is an unreasonable analogy. The food supply likely requires legal protections that luxuries don't because lives are at stake. You are able to manipulate it only because people are physically unable to "do without".
FerociousTimes 4y ago
But this is supposed to be a retail business not wholesale, I am trying very hard to get the professors' point in this debate but I just can't. Maybe the ticket market is ripe for some structural changes where wholesalers become an integral part of the value chain but I don't seriously think that this is the way to go by competing directly with retail consumers by denying them access to these tickets.
- hef19898 4y ago
  Some people, willfully or by ignorance, fail to see the difference between wholesale and retail.
- mhuffman 4y ago
  >But this is supposed to be a retail business not wholesale, I am trying very hard to get the professors' point in this debate but I just can't. You are correct. His point would be along the lines of "There is obviously value surplus left over in the current pricing or else the ticket-reseller would not be able to have a profitable business". The ethics of competing directly with retail consumers by denying them access to the tickets was not a consideration. Clearly their WTP was higher than the venue's/event's pricing, so they see no problem with this. At least that was my interpretation of the situation. From a business-person's perspective it all seems reasonable enough. From a consumer's perspective it stinks to high heaven and seems like something that should be illegal.

spookie 4y ago

Things like this just make me loose all respect for yhese degrees...

quantum_magpie 4y ago
Business degrees were about exploiting others since their inception, so they never had any basis for respect whatsoever.
- mhuffman 4y ago
  What's more is that for any business degree at my uni, a "Business Ethics" course is required and at upper-levels an "Ethics and Compliance" course is required. However it is focused much more on not ripping off investors or being unintentionally racist or misogynist, and has no focus on, for example, charging a profit-maximizing price for insulin or arbitraging food from poor people, etc.

thatguy0900 4y ago

"second we sometimes buyout events that turn out bad and lose money, so it's fair!" Interesting, I always wondered why places seem to allow this. I guess this is almost like insurance for the event.

mhuffman 4y ago
Yes, it is only popular events/artists that complain and even then they don't complain too hard (see the very existence of Ticketmaster).

code_duck 4y ago

I don’t approve of it, but this seems like basic capitalist principles to me.

mhuffman 4y ago
I agree. Pure capitalism has some great benefits for entrepreneurial people, but for a whole society it can have some pretty negative bad effects.
- d110af5ccf 4y ago
  Honestly I've never seen ticket arbitrage as a bad thing. These venues are selling below market price and then people get upset when the obvious thing happens. Essentially they are trying to operate using some sort of private club model where it's first come first served instead of supply and demand driven bidding. Yet they simultaneously want to sell these tickets on the open market. So what did they (and everyone else) expect would happen? I see ticket scalping as a natural and good outcome. If you want a private club then start a private club but honestly you will still have to deal with members attempting to scalp since you aren't charging market price and our broader economy uses more or less free markets.
  - mhuffman 4y ago
    >These venues are selling below market price Well that is one way to look at it. Let me offer you another perspective. Let's say that I send people to your town to buy up all the bread. All of it! Every brand, every size. Then I raise the price. Were the people before charging below market price, or did I just manipulate the market price and raise it? Now consider that it wasn't bread, but something like insulin or gas. Is that still the "correct" market price or am I forcing it?
    - d110af5ccf 4y ago
      That is either an unreasonable or a flawed analogy, depending on exactly what you meant. It is almost never reasonable to use essentials like food when the discussion is about luxuries. If by bread you meant specifically and only bread, then there is no issue. People will simply do without bread, perhaps buy pasta, you will be out a huge amount of money, things go about how you'd expect. In that case your analogy is flawed because you have not changed the market price. Instead you have lost yourself a lot of money. If by bread you meant "the food supply in general" then it is an unreasonable analogy. The food supply likely requires legal protections that luxuries don't because lives are at stake. You are able to manipulate it only because people are physically unable to "do without".

FerociousTimes 4y ago

But this is supposed to be a retail business not wholesale, I am trying very hard to get the professors' point in this debate but I just can't. Maybe the ticket market is ripe for some structural changes where wholesalers become an integral part of the value chain but I don't seriously think that this is the way to go by competing directly with retail consumers by denying them access to these tickets.

hef19898 4y ago
Some people, willfully or by ignorance, fail to see the difference between wholesale and retail.
mhuffman 4y ago
>But this is supposed to be a retail business not wholesale, I am trying very hard to get the professors' point in this debate but I just can't. You are correct. His point would be along the lines of "There is obviously value surplus left over in the current pricing or else the ticket-reseller would not be able to have a profitable business". The ethics of competing directly with retail consumers by denying them access to the tickets was not a consideration. Clearly their WTP was higher than the venue's/event's pricing, so they see no problem with this. At least that was my interpretation of the situation. From a business-person's perspective it all seems reasonable enough. From a consumer's perspective it stinks to high heaven and seems like something that should be illegal.