Originally posted by elj:
What a mature response. I'm impressed by your skill in refuting the points I made.
I Like Guiny, so I'll give it a shot.
Many people think that ticketmaster is in fact breaking the law. They have been sued on the basis that they have a monopoly and that they were anti-competitve (most notably, by Pearl Jam).
The Justice Department ruled that Ticketmaster did not have a monopoly because no one was trying to enter the market. Good luck to anyone trying. For those that are old enough to remember Ticketron, the only real threat to Ticketmaster, they were forced out of the marktet by Ticketmaster. After all of the contracts were set with vendors (records stores, etc.), there was no way there could be a viable competitor.
The anti-competition practices that allowed TM to charge outrageous fees were then blamed on the vendors, who needed to make money. The band (or the record company) and the venue made money on the ticket price, the vendor and TM made money on the service charges. But guess what - very few people buy tickets at vendors any longer. The internet has changed all of that. So has TM reduced it's fees to consumers? Not a bit. Their percentages have actually increased. The good news is that the internet has brought a few competitiors back into the market, but by agreements with Clear Channel and venues, small competitors like tickets.com are left out of the bigger picture, and TM still rakes in fees that were once questioned by the Justice Department with out the vendor excuse TM used in 1994.
So thank TM all you want for making tickets available to you without having to go to the venue, but I think the issues of Monopoly and anti-competitve practices should be revisited really soon.
The consumer should not be punished for wanting to enjoy entertainment. Yes, all of us joining forces and refusing to buy tickets through TM would make a difference, but why should be made to suffer by their practices - we should be allowed an alternative - many actually.
