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Comment by ravenstine | Hacker News Reader

I disagree!

Why should tickets to a Rammstein concert sell for any price but what people are willing to pay for? This isn't exactly food or healthcare we're talking about.

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Because, apparently, Rammstein doesn't like the concept of only the wealthiest being able to afford their tickets.

Sure, but I was commenting on your argument in particular, not Rammstein, which is a more general philosophical argument than them not wanting their fans in particular to get outpriced.

I was using food as a hyperbole, the same argument can be applied to anything. Should X be priced in such a way to extract the most money possible from a certain top of the wealthiest, leaving effectively everyone else without it?

Substitute X for whatever you want, and any affirmative response would be equivalent to saying "nobody should have X except the rich". If you agree with that sentence, then that's no other argument I can bring to the table.

What is stopping food producers or sellers from 10xing their prices tomorrow to price out the less than wealthy? You're free to sell rice at $1000/kg but you probably won't find too many interested buyers.

Rice is a fungible and commoditized food source where no apparent global producer has enormous pricing power to dictate prices according to their whims, while popular music bands/acts are not commoditized and the supply is intrinsically limited or even scarce, and thus pricing is more flexible and can be manipulated more easily.

What if someone very rich simply bought all the world's food supply and started selling it for an enormous price?

Sounds like a plot to a dystopian movie to me.

A bit disingenuous, no? "The rich" aren't infinite, so market price can only be so high. And, perhaps we can agree that some things like food, should be available to everyone, other things aren't so important.

Let say there's 100 tickets available but 200 people wanting to go. You are saying the right price is the price that only the richer half can afford right?

Sort of, I'm saying that if the price becomes that, it's ok as a concert is not essential for life, it's not even essential for a good life. Of course that's simply my opinion.

Your opinion implies that money is more important than anything else. If it makes most money, then it's the right thing to do.

I disagree with your opinion. Money is just a middleman - and a mathematical device used by the cunning to take everything away from everyone else and essencially enslave the world.

That's one way to read it. I personally imply no such thing. My opinion is that if something is neither essential for life, nor for a good life, it is unimportant. Any other lines someons draws are their opinion, which they are most free to have.

I see. I disagree with that opinion, too. Where would you draw the line between "unimportant" and "important" - therefore, between prices that should and should not be (allowed to be) maximized for the sake of profit?

Food, water and shelter is obvious. Is there anything else you consider important except those three? If not, would you be willing to live a life where the only things available to you are food, water and shelter - i.e. a life of a prison inmate, or a labour slave?

I agree, where is the line? My opinion stops where written. This was fun though!

> My opinion stops where written. This was fun though!

You have incorporated the word "important" into your opinion, but you haven't explained what you mean by that word. Walking away from a discussion like that without explaining what you mean by the (subjective) word you used is nothing short of rude. Especially combined with the snarky remark about your own entertainment.

If you want to spill out your opinions, without engaging in further discussion when asked, feel free to open a personal blog.

So they'd rather have the luckiest people rather than the wealthiest people? Neither seems fair.

The system where each fan that can afford the ticket price set by the band/venue has the same chance to get a ticket seems pretty fair to me.

If you are one of the wealthiest people perhaps you should consider the fact that you have been pretty lucky in life already, even if you sometimes can't attend a concert you really wanted to.

Precisely. We're not talking about essential goods or services here, so protesting the injustice of crazy concert tickets is a bit comical and whiny. It makes more sense to ask why there is a market for such insane prices in the first place. Why are people crazy enough to pay that much for concert tickets? It's their fault, not the scalpers. No one needs to buy concert tickets. No one is being forced to pay for them.

Rammstein really doesn't do shows in North America very often, so that motivates people (such as myself) to pay extra for the best tickets, even if it means getting those tickets from somewhere else when Ticketmaster is sold out. The last time they toured here was over a decade ago, with maybe a few shows here and there that weren't part of a tour. Given that some of the members are pushing their 60s, I'm not sure I care where my ticket comes from as long as I can see them before they retire.

What? Rammstein was in philadelphia a month ago. There were hundreds of tickets available for around $25 the day of the concert.

Yes, they were there a month ago as part of their North America tour because hauling their stage with them is a humongous effort. They weren't there a month ago casually.

> There were hundreds of tickets available for around $25 the day of the concert.

This was not the case in Los Angeles even for general admission or the nosebleeds, and especially not if you want to be at the very front. Why you saw $25 tickets in Philly, I have no idea. I don't think I've ever been to one of their shows in the United States where tickets were as cheap as $25 for presale.

In the northeast there are many sizable cities close together that can host bands with older venues that can be rented cheaper. In LA you have a large mass of people all wanting to see your show in one location so you charge more but transportation costs to and from the next venue and venue costs are more.

I've never paid more than $40 for a show in the east.

I don't understand this argument at all. You think only essentials should attempt to have "fair" pricing? Luxury shouldn't ever try to be "fair"? Why?

No, because it is, by definition, no longer "luxury".

Something everyone can afford isn't a luxury. Food is a luxury in certain nations. Food is just another everyday regular bullshit item here in America, or in Sweden, or Denmark. Not everyone can afford a Rolls-Royce Cullinan. That's why it's a luxury SUV.

Ticket prices aren't really any different. First off, these tickets do have "fair" pricing, but what they don't have are protections. If I want to buy 153 tickets for $40 each so I can bring my entire extended family to an event, should I have the right to do that? I don't know. Obviously in America, I tend to lean more towards "yes" than "no".

I do agree with one of the posters above who said, "If someone really wants to go see a show, they'll pay whatever they have to pay." I do tend to agree with that. I don't even remember the last concert I've been to because, based on my experience, it's going to be hot, entirely too loud, entirely too distorted, and I could have a way better time in my home theater cranking a recording of a previous concert up to 50% volume and rocking out.

Frankly I don't even understand how someone could pay $50 to see a show, much less $250, but each to their own I guess.

> I don't even remember the last concert I've been to because, based on my experience, it's going to be hot, entirely too loud, entirely too distorted

Out of curiosity, do you wear concert earplugs? I get that some people prefer a controlled sound experience, but maybe your experience was subpar because of the loudness? I wore some concert earplugs from Amazon last weekend, everything sounded clear, and no ringing afterwards.

There's no such thing as a "fair" price. That's a totally subjective and meaningless concept which has been discredited since the Middle Ages.

I think a fair price for flawless 2 carat diamonds is $100. Why won't anyone sell them to me at that price?

In this case it's a price that both the musician and the audience member like.

And more generally you can calculate a "fair" price by looking at costs and adding a comfortable profit margin on top.

No that's not how it works. You're just making up arbitrary rules.

Arbitrary rules are better than no rules.

Of course the concept of fair price is made up. The money itself is made up, it's just pieces of paper with serial numbers. Does that mean we all just have to bend down to every trickery ever invented by the rent seekers to extract value while bringing none? No, fuck rent seekers, their parasitic behavior ought to be punished by arbitrary rules.

Money is not sacred. The market is not sacred. It is supposed to serve people. Once it stops serving people, it ought to be changed.

Well I think more people would agree with my attempt at a definition than "no such thing as a "fair" price", but I don't have a survey handy.

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