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- news@lemmy.world
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Knew he would do something in the election year. It’s the one thing all Americans agree on.
We do?
I could care less about the price of concert tickets. Even if I could afford trips regularly, I still wouldn’t. Concerts are like hell to me.
Do you care about monopolies though? Whether it’s concerts or something else, we should all despise monopolies
It’s almost like monopolies are a symptom of the real problem. I wonder what actually causes monopolies?
If you really think that Live Nation needs the first to be toppled… might I introduce you to Nestle? Cargill? Unilever, Bayer. Monsanto. LN might be scummy, and they certainly need to be dealt with, but they’re far from the only thing, and they’re certainly more of a symptom than the problem itself.
“Something good happened? Why wasn’t the thing that happened the best possible thing I can think of?” - You
“I like to be a gullible idiot that thinks any politician has my interests in front of mind when they go after little scumbags that affect only a handful of Americans instead of talking larger scumbags that also happen to bribe the fuck out of everyone while fucking everyone over!” - you.
See. I can put words in your mouth, too. Compared to nestle, Monsanto, Cargill or Bayer; Live Nation is positively benign.
You’re calling me selfish? You’re the one lacking the awareness that tens of millions of Americans can’t afford food- a crisis to which every company I’ve mentioned has clearly contributed to.
In the list of issues that need to be fixed, Live Nation is a low priority. Or it should be. It’s a distraction so Biden can pretend to do something about the actual megacorpos that are fucking over the world for a quick buck.
Were you supposed to be putting words in my mouth in the third paragraph too? I’m not sure I understand the rules to this game
Holy whataboutism, Batman!
Just because other awful companies exist doesn’t mean that Ticketmaster/Live Nation should get to bleed people dry.
And they may be “just” a symptom, but a tumor will kill you just as much as the underlying cancer will.
Damn fucking straight it’s a fucking whataboutism.
People cannot afford to go to concerts. Oh fucking boo fucking boo.
People can’t afford their groceries or to pay their rent.
You’re acting like going to a concert is a basic fucking necessity.
In case you’re wondering. Yes I am fucking pissed. If Biden was half as concerned about starving families as he was swifts ticket prices… he might not be in a dead heat with an angry, insurrectionist, rapist, racist, misogynistic grifter whose facing over 90 felony indictments.
Damn fucking straight it’s a fucking whataboutism.
You DO know that those are bad, right? That they’re a logical fallacy and just generally a shitty way to argue a point by not arguing it? Clearly you either don’t know or don’t care.
People cannot afford to go to concerts. Oh fucking boo fucking boo.
Guess what? Music is important to the vast majority of people and, unlike you and me, most people prefer to experience it live.
You’re acting like going to a concert is a basic fucking necessity.
Yeah, enjoying life once in a while is crucial to your mental health. Big surprise, I know 🙄
In case you’re wondering. Yes I am fucking pissed.
Good! Nobody reasonable is saying you shouldn’t be.
If Biden was half as concerned about starving families as he was swifts ticket prices…
There you go again… Two things can be wrong independently of each other. Besides, Biden isn’t even the one trying the case, so there’s no way the two things are a zero sum binary.
he might not be in a dead heat with an angry, insurrectionist, rapist, racist, misogynistic grifter whose facing over 90 felony indictments.
Insisting on being the chief supplier of a genocide certainly doesn’t help either. Anyway, still irrelevant.
Biden, and his FTC has limited resources. He’s expending tax-payer-funded effort. It’s a basic cost-benefit analysis I expect better and more prudent decisions from lowest level of supervisors in my management chain.
It’s a fallacy when they’re otherwise unrelated. They’re not unrelated in that going after one precludes the other. The FTC can only handle so many at once- and it’s Biden’s job to give them the top-level direction.
Biden is unwilling or incapable of doing what’s necessary to protect Americans- actual, breathing Americans.
As for experiencing live music… yeah. I get that. There’s plenty of avenues for experiencing live music that don’t involve live nation. You don’t have to go to the top stars; and chances are solid, you’ll like the experience better.
Biden is the one directing the trade commission to go after them, so yes, it’s about Biden and his priorities. Which apparently, American families are not.
Two things can be independently wrong. But as is the entire point I’ve been trying to make, the resources to solve them are limited. Biden, the FTC, doesn’t have the ability to go after everyone.
I don’t think any of those have 80% of their respective markets though. Not defending any of those companies, just saying it isn’t an open and shut case.
And a lot of stuff with Nestle and Cargill in environmental, so it happens outside of the USA afaik
Yet every single one of those affects every American. Quite possibly everyone across the globe. LN only really affects you if you’re in that industry or go to a concert/events.
Nestle is fucking evil. There’s no other way to put it. They hold so many brands, that they don’t need 80% market share. I doubt very much that any American that wants to seriously boycott them even has a choice.
Same goes with Cargill or Monsanto. Cargill is responsible for a lot of the ag waste generated, being one of the largest producers of beef, and eggs as well as poultry, pork. From producing feed to farms that raise the animals.
Monsanto can literally force farmers to use their seed if any farmer even remotely close also uses their seed. (Ostensibly because gmo seeds are patented and cross pollination violates IP rights).
LN only really affects you if you’re in that industry or go to a concert/events
Yeah, they only affect the business of and most people’s favorite way to enjoy one of the main types of human creative endeavor, no biggie!
Nestle is fucking evil. There’s no other way to put it. They hold so many brands, that they don’t need 80% market share. I doubt very much that any American that wants to seriously boycott them even has a choice.
Absolutely true but also completely beside the point.
Same goes with Cargill or Monsanto. Cargill is responsible for a lot of the ag waste generated, being one of the largest producers of beef, and eggs as well as poultry, pork. From producing feed to farms that raise the animals.
Again, yes, but that ALSO doesn’t make Ticketmaster/Live Nation any better
Monsanto can literally force farmers to use their seed if any farmer even remotely close also uses their seed. (Ostensibly because gmo seeds are patented and cross pollination violates IP rights).
Again true, except Monsanto got bought by Bayer a few years ago. I’ve been unable to find out how much of their evil fuckery they’re still doing under the new name (which is probably because of a deliberate cover job by Bayer), but my guess would be “most, if not all of it”
That STILL doesn’t mean that an effective monopoly should ever be allowed to charge the equivalent of a car for a single concert ticket.
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Missing the point. Again.
Run the cost. Benefit analysis. Each of those mega corps affect every American every day. And not in any positive way.
As if Monsanto weren’t evil enough, they were acquired by Bayer in 2018.
I don’t like going to concerts either, but that doesn’t mean I think it’s acceptable that people who want to are charged half their yearly income to go to one.
My problem isn’t the ticket prices - because the groups I go see aren’t hugely popular I’ve never paid more than $30 for a ticket - but the way it hurts artists. Having one conglomerate controlling the ticket sales and the venues means artists have less negotiating power. With the collapse of music sales, most artists make most of their money from touring, and getting screwed by LiveNation means fewer bands touring.
My problem is both tbh. Thanks for bringing up the other half of the suck sandwich that everyone had neglected mentioning until now.
Seems like an income problem given all other evidence tbh
“I can’t afford to have fun at these exploitative prices”
“Have you tried just being rich?”
I was actually saying the opposite, that we need more done about income protections so people can afford stuff. “Given all other evidence” meaning the mountains of information we see about inflation…
The problem with concert tickets isn’t inflation. It’s the Live Nation/Ticketmaster monopoly that controls both the venue and the sales vehicle. They own all the best venues, disallow artists to use any other way to sell tickets that aren’t Ticketmaster, and charge both the artists and the consumers exorbitant fees.
They’re making money on both ends of the transaction because of their monopoly on live music.
I didn’t say high ticket prices was inflation. I was explaining my original “evidence” comment was to reflect inflation not “don’t be poor” and now I’m being critiqued for not re-writing the original story in the comments like people seem to want.
I hate Ticketmaster as much as anyone, and think the DOJ should absolutely pursue them, but the fact people can’t afford ticket prices is also because people are stretched financially more than ever before, which is a much bigger issue than just
I’m going to assume someone will now down vote me for not predicting some other third assumption that they will jump to. Great!
Expensive hell. Not only do you get to suffer, you have to pay heavily for the privilege!
David Mitchell is the best pedant ever 😆❤️
I could care less about the price of concert tickets.
i can see that based on how much you’ve argued against lowering ticket prices
The most pressing issue
It’s pretty important to bust monopolies, I’d say
Utilities, healthcare, debt, education, foreign aid, environment, tech spyware, freedom of the Internet, insurrection. I got depressed and stopped listing things… I am happy for any kind of a win, but I stopped giving ticketmaster money in 2007. This is so overdue, it’s only becoming a priority because Biden thinks he can win over swifties. It’s hard to pretend that this should be a priority, at least free us from cable monopolies first.
I think “win over swifties” is a big reductionist. It will certainly help get the attention of apathetic young voters and dinks, though.
It’s also a bit of low-hanging fruit compared to the rest of them. Literally all the rest of them have massive lobbies backing them.
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I just want to get schwifty.
Great now he just has to tackle overpriced cars, and ban corporate home ownership.
Honestly, I care far more about untangling our rat’s nest of NIMBY land use laws. As it stands, it’s literally illegal to build anything denser than sprawling, low-density suburbs on the majority of urban land thanks to NIMBY policies such as restrictive zoning and arbitrary mandatory parking minimums.
Tbh, the whole “corporate ownership of homes” is a red herring. Shuffling around ownership does nothing if you’re not massively expanding supply. And what we need most right now is massively expanded supply.
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Yeah, political opinions based on “regulations always good” or “regulations always bad” are lazy and unhelpful. For one, it ignores that many regulations are written for the express purpose of manufacturing or solidifying a monopoly.
And NIMBY land use policies really are just a textbook example of regulatory capture. Homeowners, who expect their homes to perpetually increase in value, lobby their local governments to manufacture an artificial scarcity of housing so as to drive their property values to the moon. All of this at the expense of renters and new home buyers.
Imo, we should all be trying to form nuanced political opinions where we judge policy on whether it’s good policy or not.
To add to this Science Vs did a podcast on the lack of affordable housing. It goes into the NIMBYs, the corporate ownership, local laws that make it hard to build multi-family units, and AirBnB. There are a lot of different factors and it might take time to see the results of fixing it because of this.
A red herring? Is there or is there not at least 1 housing unit per family that currently exists? My most recent understanding is we have enough quantity, just poor distribution.
The “we have enough homes already” is a common (and unfortunately very harmful) myth.
A couple good in-depth videos on the topic:
The gist of it is that statistics on how many vacant homes exist are highly misleading, for two main reasons:
- Many of the homes are not where the demand is. A vacant home in St Louis does nothing to help with a housing shortage in NYC. People want to live in NYC because that’s where the jobs are. A house in St Louis isn’t worth much if you can’t find work there. And statistics consistently show that the most expensive cities have the lowest vacancy rates.
- A lot of the homes that are counted as “vacant” aren’t actually just free for the taking like “vacant” would have you believe. In these statistics, “vacant” can mean: 1) a unit that is between tenants, 2) a unit that just finished being built and is awaiting its tenant’s move-in, 3) a unit occupied by someone who doesn’t legally state it as their primary residence (e.g., student housing where the student still lists their parents’ home as their primary address), 4) a unit in horrible disrepair that is unfit for occupation, etc.
Add to this the fact that high vacancy rates are GOOD for you, as it means landlords and sellers have a credible threat of vacancy, meaning they can’t demand ludicrous prices. Reducing vacancy rates is an incredibly anti-consumer, pro-landlord move.
Thank you for taking the time to respond! As per usual, language fails us because “vacant home” sure doesn’t mean the same thing to everyone saying it.
Is NYC (taking your example) prone to low-density zoning? Just looking at induced scarcity vs geographic scarcity, there’s a possibility that everyone that desires to live in NYC just can’t. I’m no expert, obviously.
Say we did remove zoning restrictions and builders could go bananas, what is their incentive to build if they expect vacancy? No one wants to finance new builds if they won’t fill. Developers want low vacancy as much as landlords do. It sounds like zoning changes would be best paired with subsidy programs for individual home buyers or something to allow individuals priority over corporations.
NYC itself doesn’t have much (although it still has some! see image below) low-density zoning, but their suburbs sure do. The city itself also has a lot of other bureaucratic barriers to development that result in it having abysmal housing construction rates.
As for vacancy, yes, the threat of not being able to sell is what stops builders from building too much. For example, it’s the reason no one’s even trying to build the Burj Khalifa in Bakersfield. But if you make it legal and reasonably easy to build, yes, people will build.
Perhaps Tokyo is the best example. Biggest city in the world, and yet it’s actually relatively affordable, thanks largely to good land use policy:
In the past half century, by investing in transit and allowing development, the city has added more housing units than the total number of units in New York City. It has remained affordable by becoming the world’s largest city. It has become the world’s largest city by remaining affordable.
Two full-time workers earning Tokyo’s minimum wage can comfortably afford the average rent for a two-bedroom apartment in six of the city’s 23 wards. By contrast, two people working minimum-wage jobs cannot afford the average rent for a two-bedroom apartment in any of the 23 counties in the New York metropolitan area.
…
In Tokyo, by contrast, there is little public or subsidized housing. Instead, the government has focused on making it easy for developers to build. A national zoning law, for example, sharply limits the ability of local governments to impede development. Instead of allowing the people who live in a neighborhood to prevent others from living there, Japan has shifted decision-making to the representatives of the entire population, allowing a better balance between the interests of current residents and of everyone who might live in that place. Small apartment buildings can be built almost anywhere, and larger structures are allowed on a vast majority of urban land. Even in areas designated for offices, homes are permitted. After Tokyo’s office market crashed in the 1990s, developers started building apartments on land they had purchased for office buildings.
I think the key idea is to not have government bureaucrats or existing homeowners or landlords decide whether there’s “enough” housing, but rather let builders determine if there’s unmet demand. If there is unmet demand, they will build if you let them. If there truly is enough housing in a certain city, then you don’t need to tell builders not to build – they’ll simply stop building if they sense there’s not enough demand for it.
You’re a treasure and you’ve given me a lot to digest. Have a great day!
ban corporate home ownership
ban corporate home ownership
ban corporate home ownership
ban corporate home ownership
:)
This is the best summary I could come up with:
When tickets first went on sale for her highly anticipated Eras Tour in November 2022, fans agonized over hours-long queues and frozen screens before Ticketmaster’s website ultimately crashed.
Ticketmaster’s failure to adequately prepare for that onslaught of demand by underinvesting in the customer purchase experience might have constituted an abuse of its market power, some economists pointed out.
“The Justice Department should have never cleared the [Live Nation-Ticketmaster] merger, because as a vertically integrated monopoly, they have every interest in encouraging prices and fees to go up, and there is no [one] in a position to discipline the industry, either by using an alternative promoter or ticketing agent,” said Tim Wu, a key architect of the Biden administration’s antitrust policies and a professor at Columbia Law.
Regardless of how the DOJ frames its lawsuit, it will have to show that Live Nation Entertainment has engaged in anti-competitive behavior that has stifled competition and hurt consumers by excessively raising prices or offering products of inferior quality.
Some experts, like Fiona Scott Morton, a professor at Yale School of Management and former chief economist at the DOJ’s antitrust division, think the government may have a strong case.
“Ticketmaster is pointing at the undeniable power of others to obscure its own monopolistic role in facilitating the extraordinary growth in both fees and also, to some extent, ticket prices,” Wu said.
The original article contains 1,148 words, the summary contains 227 words. Saved 80%. I’m a bot and I’m open source!
Standards are low. So so so low…
Obviously the only real issue the american government is capable of tackling.
Cool but like… Gaza? When are you going to do something for Palestine.
Biden be like: “Sure what concert do they want tickets to?”
… Could we maybe focus on all the other things that are ludicrously high? Like hey… rent and/or housing prices? I could see some people being pissed if they thought their home value would go down, but fuck the damn rental companies charging sky-high “market rates” for shitty apartments that haven’t been improved in over a decade.
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It’s the worst option. It hurts everyone: Ticketmaster, artists, venues, fans, and yourself for missing out on the show you want to see.
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But that’s entirely missing the whole reason most people attend concerts.
Yeah sure, everyone should be deprived of live music rather than doing something about the greedy cunts abusing their power to fleece people 🙄
It would only take one or two big tickets gigs to not sell to see prices come down.
If people are fine paying that price, there’s no problem.
It would only take one or two big tickets gigs to not sell to see prices come down
That’s just factually inaccurate. Also an extremely unrealistic and unfair demand of the victims of exploitation.
If people are fine paying that price, there’s no problem
They aren’t but they don’t have a choice. That’s the point.
You can refuse to accept basic economics if you want, I can’t make you. Things are priced to sell, it’s as simple as that
Go back to comment 1. Not buying IS an option, no one is forcing you to attend the gig, if the price is too high, then don’t go.
basic economics
You know that other factors exist than just the most basic fundamentals, right? because you’re acting like you don’t.
Things are priced to sell
Things are priced to profit. When the combination of a popular/arguably necessary commodity and little to no competition lets them, companies will exploit that to abuse people for extra profit.
Not buying IS an option
It’s not a GOOD option, though, and not one that anyone should be coerced into rather than reining in abusive corporations that break the law.
no one is forcing you to attend the gig, if the price is too high, then don’t go.
No one is forcing companies to abuse people either. That you think depriving people of entertainment is a better option than upholding the law by doing something about abusively profiteering corporations says a lot about you, none of it good.
We could argue all day. I take a principled stand of refusing to participate in things that I view as unfair.
If you and others continue to contribute to a system that you view as unfair, knowing that you don’t have to, that’s something you have to come to terms with yourself.
I take a principled stand of refusing to participate in things that I view as unfair.
And I’m arguing that it would be more principled to take steps to stop the abuse by holding the abusers accountable than to make it the responsibility of the victims to affect change by depriving themselves needlessly.
If you and others continue to contribute to a system that you view as unfair, knowing that you don’t have to, that’s something you have to come to terms with yourself
Yeah, because “either don’t enjoy music live or it’s your fault” isn’t victim blaming at all, nuh-uh! 🙄
This is how you’re acting:
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That’s how all monopolies work I suppose. That doesn’t make them right
are you familiar with the concept of a “monopoly”?
Are you familiar with reading English?
They weren’t saying “buy from someone else”, they were just saying “don’t buy”.
how often do monopolies get broken up by simply telling people “dont buy”? and how is that a good argument against government action?
I’m not saying that refusing to buy will break up the monopoly, it’s just basic economics, if no one buys due to the price being too high, they will drop the price.
I’m not arguing against government action.
“the price will go down if no one buys the tickets” is true in the same way that the statement “if everyone moves to finland, then no one will live in germany” is true. it doesn’t really mean anything, because you can’t convince everyone to stop buying tickets in the same way that you can’t convince everyone to move to finland.
this sort of problem is why governments regulate things. during the industrial revolution, companies would’ve stopped using child labor if everyone refused to buy from companies that used child labor. but that didn’t happen, so governments took it upon themselves to make child labor illegal.
I’m more than willing to vote with my wallet. If everyone else wants to hold themselves captive that’s their choice, they just shouldn’t pretend that refusing to pay isn’t an option.
Your analogy of uprooting your life to live in another country is a bit of an over exaggeration, we’re talking about missing out on a gig, it’s not akin to starting your life over.
I’m more than willing to vote with my wallet.
voting with your wallet isn’t really voting though. how are companies supposed to tell the difference between you not buying something because you’re not interested, and you not buying something because of some principled opposition? the other huge problem with the “vote with your wallet idea” is that bigger wallets get more votes. and people with bigger wallets might not care as much about incremental price increases.
Your analogy of uprooting your life to live in another country is a bit of an over exaggeration, we’re talking about missing out on a gig, it’s not akin to starting your life over.
are you familiar with the purpose of an analogy? here’s the merriam webster: definition of an analogy:
a comparison of two otherwise unlike things based on resemblance of a particular aspect
is starting your life over different from not going to a concert? yes, but that’s not the point of the analogy. you can say a bunch of “true” if-then statements, but that doesn’t really accomplish anything if the premises are never satisfied. so that’s why i gave an analogy with a premise that’s even harder to satisfy, to illustrate this very point.
