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Comment by xnorswap | Hacker News Reader

If tickets were sold for "market price" then the vast majority of people would be priced out of many events because the wealthy are so much wealthier than the average person that they'd simply monopolise a whole lot of entertainment.

Not entirely unlike what has happened to the housing market in cities like London or Vancouver.

If you're okay with huge swathes of the population going without whole sectors of entertainment because "it's a free market" then you're entitled to that opinion. That isn't a society I value.

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> If you're okay with huge swathes of the population going without whole sectors of entertainment because "it's a free market" then you're entitled to that opinion. That isn't a society I value.

What I don't think you realize is that rules against scalping help create a mono-culture. Sure huge swathes may be barred from a Bieber concert or whatever is popular today but if that happened the dearth of access to that content will lead to its decline in popularity.

If we let that happen it would open up room in the market for smaller artists and artists at every other level to thrive and build audiences that would otherwise be glued to whatever the corporate record companies are hocking.

A similar way to think about it is that most people would love to have their own yacht but scarcity makes that very difficult. Does everyone deserve a yacht? Instead, with a market, a few super rich get to have a yacht (woopty doo) and the rest of us who want a boat own something smaller and more reasonable.

Yachts aren't inherently scarce, they're just expensive to build and maintain. With more money, more yachts can be built.

With more money, you can't build more Biebers.

And given that music is especially easy to copy with the internet, it doesn't follow that their popularity will decline, it simply means that fans will be limited to only watching via TV or the internet rather than being able to attend concerts.

Likewise with sports and sports teams.

Yachts aren't scarce? I've never seen one just lying around! Sorry I am missing your point there.

Money is the means to prioritize needs in a world of scarcity. If everyone just had more money it would instantly become worth less (not worthless).

You are conflating the live entertainment market and the recorded entertainment market. People will still want to see live music even if it is not some blockbuster name.

Besides, when the rubber meets the road every big name concert I've been to at a stadium size venue is essentially the same as watching a recording because you just watch the big screen anyways.

If you really want the best live experience you just book the artist for your birthday gala. Do you think we should all be able to do that too?

No, yachts aren't scarce. If there was greater demand for yachts then people could build more yachts and increase supply.

They are expensive, but that is different to scarce.

They especially aren't inherently scarce, which is what I actually said. You missed out the most important word.

There is a natural scarcity to top sports teams or top music artists. Artists can't be cloned and there can only be one champions league final each year.

If there is that much of a demand for that type of entertainment, more of it will be created due to the increased revenue.

If you live in an Economic Textbook then yes, more will be created.

In reality there's only one Red Sox or Ed Sheeran and you can't magic up another because of market demand.

Could you imagine? 15 Superbowls at the same time. Cue a "Markets in Action" vignette.

The scenario you're outlining seems to favor the consumers of art over the creators. Am I understanding you correctly?

It's my opinion that tickets should be sold for as much as the market will handle assuming the additional proceeds go directly to the artist. Any other approach is charity at cost to the artist.

I think that's a very naive perspective, it encourages a romantic view of entertainment where an artist is selling their own trade themselves.

That isn't the reality of the world.

Maximising the profit of the entertainment "artist" is in reality maximising the profits of the rights holder which in many cases is itself a large corporation such as the NFL.

Do I value the consumers of football over the NFL? Heck yes I do!

It's why for instance Germany has their 50%+1 rule, to help make sure that fans rather than corporate owners benefit from the sport.

Even in the case of things like solo artists, I don't want to live in a world where only the super rich can see an artist live, and everyone else has to suck it up because it maximises the money for the artist.

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