5 ms·

They are doing a service to anyone who buys scalped tickets, who is happy to pay extra rather than not go. Competition at this price is lower. I know many peopl

by sambe 14y ago

They are doing a service to anyone who buys scalped tickets, who is happy to pay extra rather than not go. Competition at this price is lower. I know many people who have happily paid well over face value on several occasions. Of course everyone would rather pay an artificially low price. Wanting a better deal isn't the same as the premium being extortion. You may not like scalping but there's no point being blinkered about it.

fusiongyro 14y ago
Except they're only paying extra because, ta-da!, the tickets were scalped. The competition is higher at the lower price because, ta-da!, the tickets were scalped. The arguments for scalping only work if the effects of the scalping are ignored. Eliminating scalpers benefits everyone.
- sambe 14y ago
  It's not so much an argument "for scalping" as an argument against being emotional and extreme. So, once again, - no, not everyone benefits. Without the higher price tickets available from the scalpers, they would not have been able to go. They got what they wanted at a price they could afford. Disliking something is not the same as it being inherently and totally evil.
  - fusiongyro 14y ago
    You're putting words in my mouth. > Without the higher price tickets available from the scalpers, they would not have been able to go. Again, this is assuming that the amount of competition for the tickets is not affected by the scalpers. In reality, the scalpers are exactly the ones driving the scarcity.
    - ionforce 14y ago
      That's the whole point of scalping, to affect access to tickets. Has more money => has more access to scalped tickets vs normal tickets
    - philwelch 14y ago
      Scalpers can only make money if there are more people willing to buy tickets at the face value than there are tickets available. Here, go learn what a demand curve looks like and then think more carefully about this: http://www.khanacademy.org/finance-economics/microeconomics/v/law-of-demand http://www.khanacademy.org/finance-economics/microeconomics/...
- jarek 14y ago
  Scalping benefits people who wouldn't have gotten tickets in a non-scalped sale (e.g. because there were twice the amount of people interested at face price than tickets available) and are willing to pay more to get the tickets. Scalpers are exploiting the rigid pricing and release schedules of the tickets. I don't support scalping but wish the artists and promoters would step up the fight themselves too.
  - rquantz 14y ago
    I don't support scalping but wish the artists and promoters would step up the fight themselves too. That's exactly what Louis CK is doing.
    - jarek 14y ago
      Yup, and great for him! I wish more would do the same.
- philwelch 14y ago
  Suppose there are 1000 tickets for a show that are $20 each. There are 5000 people in town who would buy a ticket at that price. Without any scalping, the first 1000 people who show up get a ticket and 4000 people go home unhappy. With scalping, the first 1000 people who show up still get tickets. 900 of them are scalpers. (So if you were in the first 100, you still got to pay face value.) I'm being very generous with this scenario--I've personally never seen a situation where this was a real problem, as I've gone to every ticketed event I've ever wanted to paying face value. The 900 scalpers all pick different prices. At $40, there are about 2000 people left in town who want to buy a ticket. Some of them get tickets, but the other scalpers get wise and think, why not charge more? So they charge $50. Or $60. Eventually they reach a point where there are exactly n tickets left, and exactly n people left in town who are willing to buy at that price. If the scalpers overprice the ticket, no one will buy, so they'll need to lower the price again. But generally, what's reached is a fair price that sees all the tickets go to people who actually were willing to buy them at the price they bought them at. So let's look at what's happened. Without scalping, you have 4000 people who missed out on buying tickets because they weren't first in line and 1000 people going to a show. With scalping, you still have 1000 people going to a show, but instead of all of them being picked on the less-than-perfectly-fair basis of who was first in line (which is a disadvantage to people with more work, more responsibilities, inconveniently timed emergencies, and slow internet connections), some of them are picked based on who was first in line, and some of them are picked based on who was willing to pay more (which is a disadvantage to people with less money). You might think, well, it's better to be unfair to busy people than to be unfair to poor people. But let's change this thought experiment and say the face value of the tickets was $60 to begin with instead of $20, and at $60, there are exactly 1000 people in town who are willing to buy a ticket. Now there are no scalpers (or if any scalpers do show up, they can only resell the ticket for face value anyway). I would argue that this scenario is strictly less fair than the scenario where the face value was $20 and there was some scalping, because at least in the first scenario, it was possible to get a lower price by getting in line first! Fundamentally, what difference does it make who's setting the price? You might say, well, if the face value was $60, at least the performer (or the venue, or the ticket vendor) is getting the extra money, not just some "scalper". But the scalper is effectively getting in line for you. He's going out of his way to do the leg work for you. You know who else we pay a premium to for doing the leg work? Shopkeepers. Sure, if we really wanted to, we could go to some warehouse and save some money by buying all our stuff off a pallet. (You still can if you want to--it's called Costco.) But maybe I'd rather some other guy does all that legwork for me, and in exchange, I'll pay more. And if you're running around doing legwork for other people, you are benefitting those people.

by sambe 14y ago

fusiongyro 14y ago

Except they're only paying extra because, ta-da!, the tickets were scalped. The competition is higher at the lower price because, ta-da!, the tickets were scalped. The arguments for scalping only work if the effects of the scalping are ignored. Eliminating scalpers benefits everyone.

sambe 14y ago
It's not so much an argument "for scalping" as an argument against being emotional and extreme. So, once again, - no, not everyone benefits. Without the higher price tickets available from the scalpers, they would not have been able to go. They got what they wanted at a price they could afford. Disliking something is not the same as it being inherently and totally evil.
- fusiongyro 14y ago
  You're putting words in my mouth. > Without the higher price tickets available from the scalpers, they would not have been able to go. Again, this is assuming that the amount of competition for the tickets is not affected by the scalpers. In reality, the scalpers are exactly the ones driving the scarcity.
  - ionforce 14y ago
    That's the whole point of scalping, to affect access to tickets. Has more money => has more access to scalped tickets vs normal tickets
  - philwelch 14y ago
    Scalpers can only make money if there are more people willing to buy tickets at the face value than there are tickets available. Here, go learn what a demand curve looks like and then think more carefully about this: http://www.khanacademy.org/finance-economics/microeconomics/v/law-of-demand http://www.khanacademy.org/finance-economics/microeconomics/...
jarek 14y ago
Scalping benefits people who wouldn't have gotten tickets in a non-scalped sale (e.g. because there were twice the amount of people interested at face price than tickets available) and are willing to pay more to get the tickets. Scalpers are exploiting the rigid pricing and release schedules of the tickets. I don't support scalping but wish the artists and promoters would step up the fight themselves too.
- rquantz 14y ago
  I don't support scalping but wish the artists and promoters would step up the fight themselves too. That's exactly what Louis CK is doing.
  - jarek 14y ago
    Yup, and great for him! I wish more would do the same.
philwelch 14y ago
Suppose there are 1000 tickets for a show that are $20 each. There are 5000 people in town who would buy a ticket at that price. Without any scalping, the first 1000 people who show up get a ticket and 4000 people go home unhappy. With scalping, the first 1000 people who show up still get tickets. 900 of them are scalpers. (So if you were in the first 100, you still got to pay face value.) I'm being very generous with this scenario--I've personally never seen a situation where this was a real problem, as I've gone to every ticketed event I've ever wanted to paying face value. The 900 scalpers all pick different prices. At $40, there are about 2000 people left in town who want to buy a ticket. Some of them get tickets, but the other scalpers get wise and think, why not charge more? So they charge $50. Or $60. Eventually they reach a point where there are exactly n tickets left, and exactly n people left in town who are willing to buy at that price. If the scalpers overprice the ticket, no one will buy, so they'll need to lower the price again. But generally, what's reached is a fair price that sees all the tickets go to people who actually were willing to buy them at the price they bought them at. So let's look at what's happened. Without scalping, you have 4000 people who missed out on buying tickets because they weren't first in line and 1000 people going to a show. With scalping, you still have 1000 people going to a show, but instead of all of them being picked on the less-than-perfectly-fair basis of who was first in line (which is a disadvantage to people with more work, more responsibilities, inconveniently timed emergencies, and slow internet connections), some of them are picked based on who was first in line, and some of them are picked based on who was willing to pay more (which is a disadvantage to people with less money). You might think, well, it's better to be unfair to busy people than to be unfair to poor people. But let's change this thought experiment and say the face value of the tickets was $60 to begin with instead of $20, and at $60, there are exactly 1000 people in town who are willing to buy a ticket. Now there are no scalpers (or if any scalpers do show up, they can only resell the ticket for face value anyway). I would argue that this scenario is strictly less fair than the scenario where the face value was $20 and there was some scalping, because at least in the first scenario, it was possible to get a lower price by getting in line first! Fundamentally, what difference does it make who's setting the price? You might say, well, if the face value was $60, at least the performer (or the venue, or the ticket vendor) is getting the extra money, not just some "scalper". But the scalper is effectively getting in line for you. He's going out of his way to do the leg work for you. You know who else we pay a premium to for doing the leg work? Shopkeepers. Sure, if we really wanted to, we could go to some warehouse and save some money by buying all our stuff off a pallet. (You still can if you want to--it's called Costco.) But maybe I'd rather some other guy does all that legwork for me, and in exchange, I'll pay more. And if you're running around doing legwork for other people, you are benefitting those people.