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At your suggestion, I did the Google search. I did not find an 'overwhelming consensus'. There are some sellers who are motivated to allow it for complex reaso
by lcuff 4y ago
At your suggestion, I did the Google search. I did not find an 'overwhelming consensus'. There are some sellers who are motivated to allow it for complex reasons (public perception, value of sell-out crowds which allow TV broadcast of sporting events and ancillary sales. e.g). The fancy term 'allocative efficiency' which is econ-speak for 'we should always sell to the highest bidder' is described as a positive outcome of scalping. Personally I find that nauseating, and of no real value to (original) providers (sellers) such as entertainers. There are first-person interviews of entertainers distressed by the way scalping impacts their fans.
- UncleEntity 4y agoI’ve shown up to venues before and paid less for a ticket from the scalpers than if I would have walked over to the box office because they were just trying to unload them. I’ve also sold an extra ticket for a friend by just walking up to a random person standing in the ticket line and offering it to them for face value (which saved them money on the ticket counter markup). Both cases involved turning what would have been a complete loss into less than a complete loss. Never felt bad about the scalpers loosing money because they knew the risks and my friend was just going to eat the loss because whoever the ticket was for couldn’t make the show for whatever reason and I was like “I’ll get rid of it for you”.
- lcuff 4y agoYes, these are good examples of ... well, 'useful' scalping. The scenario I had in mind was when big scalping outfits have a modus operandi of buying huge quantities of tickets for re-sale. Aided and abetted by the technology of the web. I don't think it happened too often before that.