5 ms·
idiotic populist move. resellers exist because the listed price is much lower than the price people are willing to pay. banning them doesn't make the demand go
by _dain_ 11mo ago
idiotic populist move. resellers exist because the listed price is much lower than the price people are willing to pay. banning them doesn't make the demand go away. this will just create a black market in resold tickets, with no legal recourse against fraud etc.
yookay government's crusade to outlaw all useful economic activity continues apace. you can't legislate away scarcity.
EDIT:
>How is scalping a useful economic activity? What new value is created by for example buying up loads of Taylor Swift concert tickets and selling them at a marked up price?
if I don't want to wait in a queue or spam F5 on a website at 4 in the morning so I can be one of the first, I can instead pay somebody to do all that tedious work for me, and they can profit from it. this is a valuable service that I'm willing to pay for, and have in fact paid for with no regrets whatsoever.
SCARCITY IS A FUNDAMENTAL ECONOMIC FACT. more people want to attend a concert than there are seats available. this scarcity must be rationed in some way. there are many ways: queues, lotteries, clientelism, theft. prices are one of the more efficient mechanisms, because unlike the others, money can be directly traded, stored, accounted for, and is a means by which the value of other goods and services can be compared.
if I wait in a queue, that is a cost I have to pay, but it is simply lost. it goes nowhere. but if I pay someone else to sit in the queue for me, I can do something else useful with the time I would have spent in the queue, and that other person can then use the money to buy something else in the future. that is the value of scalping! moreover, that one other person can sit in the queue on behalf of N other people; we all benefit from this economic specialisation and reduction of redundancy.
scalpers are the unjustly persecuted heroes of our economy. they are apostates from Queueing, our national religion.
- yladiz 11mo agoIt’s not like you really had much recourse before anyway, if someone sold you a fake ticket or one that’s already been used, are you really going to sue them or the platform? Charge back and hope you get the money back?
- criddell 11mo ago> this will just create a black market in resold tickets It doesn't have to though, does it? For example there's no black market for airline tickets.
- lawlessone 11mo ago>resellers exist because the listed price is much lower than the price people are willing to pay. This is such a copout, resellers inflate the price. >yookay government's crusade to outlaw all useful economic activity continues apace. How is scalping a useful economic activity? What new value is created for concert goers or artists/venue by for example buying up loads of Taylor Swift concert tickets and selling them at a marked up price? No value is added by paying a huge extra margin to rent seeking scalpers. Not everything in the world has to be a stock market. >SCARCITY IS A FUNDAMENTAL ECONOMIC FACT. >scalpers are economic heroes. Lol, the tout is crashing out.
- _dain_ 11mo agowhy must we believe that the resellers "inflating" the price, instead of the initial price being "deflated"? there is no Platonic "true" price here. the ground truth is what individual people are willing to pay.
- lawlessone 11mo ago>the ground truth is what individual people are willing to pay. This kinda seems like it's just putting an ideology before people. Markets and money are just tools for human benefit, don't turn your wrench into a religion.
- hypeatei 11mo agoThe people willing to pay those prices inflate them. I could buy a $1k car and list it for a million dollars tomorrow. If no one buys it, then it's not worth $1M. If someone does, then it's worth that amount.
- WheatMillington 11mo agoYou're ignoring the effect of scalpers, who dramatically increase the demand and thereby drive the secondary price up. It's self-fulfilling.
- 11mo ago
- WheatMillington 11mo ago>useful economic activity Sorry but I remain unconvinced.
- kingstnap 11mo agoIts not, efficiency doesn't mean charging exactly what people will pay. Scalpers don't produce more tickets, they just eat away consumer surplus. It's not a net good its just rent seeking.
- YeGoblynQueenne 11mo ago>> scalpers are the unjustly persecuted heroes of our economy. they are apostates from Queueing, our national religion. Right? Scalpers are only the latest in a long line of wrongly persecuted financial minorities like black market sellers, smugglers, drug lords, pirates, slavers, pimps, and Ponzi scheme entrepreneurs. Freedom to the heroes of our markets!
- CyberDildonics 11mo agoI think you're confusing the concept of arbitrage with human trafficking.
- deleted 11mo ago[deleted]
- YeGoblynQueenne 11mo ago... and traffickers. Thank you!
- CyberDildonics 11mo agoThat's implied with slavery. Equating someone who sells a pokemon card on ebay with people who sell other people into slavery is a bold choice.
- YeGoblynQueenne 11mo agoThank god nobody made it.
- CyberDildonics 11mo agoDo you mean nobody else made it? Because you did put 'scalpers' and 'slavers' in the same sentence.
- 11mo ago