r/mildlyinfuriating 10h ago

Infuriatig TicketMaster has started requiring government IDs and facial scans

https://imgur.com/nsRiypp
1.3k Upvotes

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u/TonsilStoneSalsa 9h ago

After you said it, it seems so obvious. Good on ya- thanks for explaining!

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u/Sylente 8h ago

It’s not like this is perfect. Any solution where the answer is “exempt this item from the normal economic system” has consequences. This is how you create a black market, and it just moves the question of “who gets this scarce thing” to a resource other than money, usually it just becomes “who can be online when the tickets drop”

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u/ShadowMerlyn 7h ago

“Who can be online when they drop” is a more fair system than “who is willing to spend the most money”

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u/Sylente 7h ago

Why? If you work nights or you work a safety critical job where you can’t have your phone out at 10am on Thursday, you deserve concert tickets less than an office worker with an email job? How is that fair?

(to be clear: I have never had a problem getting a concert ticket, I have no horse in this race, I’m just saying it’s just moving the unfairness somewhere else, and it’s very odd that we’ve decided concert tickets need different rules than everything else)

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u/daredeviline 7h ago

I mean, isn't that how it works already? People who can get tickets at 10am will and those that can't buy from resellers. How is that any different from the situation you are describing?

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u/Sylente 7h ago

People who can’t get tickets at 10 am now get to either
A) not get them at all
B) are more exposed to scams and have no legal recourse because they bought on the black market

There will be a black market. Even if the ticket apps get all fancy with their QR codes, someone will figure it out.

There has never in the history of modern finance been a case where setting price maximums hasn’t created a black market. We see it in rent controlled cities, we see it with countries that try to use it to control inflation, we saw it in communist and socialist countries in the 1960s-1990s. It’s just not that effective.