Summary: “Beyoncé is selling “listening only” tickets > for her Renaissance tour. The seats are behind the > > stage, so you can’t see any of the set or dancing, but > they only cost $157 compared to the ~$900 fans have been paying for regular US tickets.”
haha!
fuuuuuuuck that.
It’s a common justification, but “if I don’t do [bad thing], then someone else will do [bad thing] instead, but worse” feels like an excuse we’ve heard before.
After all, there’s systems you could put in place to handle scalpers.
But Ticketmaster et al actually have them baked into the business plan, so have no intention of making change.
It’s the same reason there’s no politicians trying to bring rents down. They’re all bloody landlords.
Similar, not same.
Both are supply/demand equilibrium, and will always reach the price the market is willing to pay.
With Beyonce, the richest 10k (or so) fans are the ones who will buy the tickets, either through direct payment or scalpers. You could do things like name tickets with photo ID required to present, but the wealthiest who were willing to pay the scalper would still buy anyway. Taylor swift tried lowering her prices for actual fans with a point system, and got hauled over the coals for it.
The housing market is different. If you set a price control on rent you remove any incentive to improve your rental property or invest in new builds as you no longer receive the payoff from the risk - resulting in slum lords and large stocks of the cheapest, shittiest technically houses that you can get. Supply never moves, demand naturally increases over time and property never gets invested in.