Internal emails reveal Ticketmaster helped scalpers jack up prices, FTC says

Hard to care what happens to a company like TicketMaster. As you build your company, ask yourself how they ended up like this.

Do you think the founders had this outcome in mind when they started (everyone hating them and seeing them as an evil money grab)? They probably started with a different ethos.

A good reminder that what we do can change - we need to instill our values into the basics of everything we build, otherwise we'll just be building the next TicketMaster, Oracle, or Meta.

As far as I know, we get one go. Let's build things that matter and make the world a better place. Greed will even ruin concerts otherwise.

> Do you think the founders had this outcome in mind when they started?

Maybe not this _exact_ outcome but largely yes I suspect they did. Capitalists rent seeking all the way through their history and if you put money first in any business venture you will always feel pressure to enshitify. See 1994 Pearl Jam vs TM and monopolistic behavior 30 years ago.

> Maybe not this _exact_ outcome but largely yes I suspect they did.

Sorry, this simply isn't the case. Before TM, the best available ticket was whatever the vendor you were dealing with had in their inventory. TicketMaster was started by 3 people who wanted to make the process of getting the "best available" ticket easier than going to all the disconnected ticket-sellers and finding out who had the best ticket.

The company changed models in the 1980s when a new owner took over who was solely focused on revenue.

> See 1994 Pearl Jam vs TM and monopolistic behavior 30 years ago.

Your takeaway seems different than mine. I see a company who could have changed or been regulated 30 years ago. Now they'll slowly die or be replaced quickly by something better like an AI ticketing system. Finding someone who likes TicketMaster today is impossible. When TM launched, everyone loved it. What a loss.

As many of us here have a role in how our companies are built and what they become, it is worth asking how TM lost its way and how we can avoid bringing the same level of gross, enshittified capitalism into the world with what we build.

> Now they'll slowly die or be replaced quickly by something better like an AI ticketing system.

I highly doubt it. The merger with LiveNation made them much more than a ticketing service. They now also handle artist management, concert promotion, and venue ownership. In fact "Live Nation-Ticketmaster maintains "monopoly control" over the top 100 amphitheaters and 100 arenas worldwide" [1]

[1] https://www.economicliberties.us/press-release/new-report-ex...

What part of "now they'll slowly die" is discounted by the charts you linked showing they're currently alive?

Internet Explorer had something like 99% of the web browser market in 1999. It... slowly died.

May TicketMaster follow suit if they continue their greed.