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Comment by mhb | Hacker News Reader

I don't see why the Dutch auction doesn't address your concerns. The starting price can be higher, the price drop can be non-linear and third party software using the concert's API can serve customers by providing them with the same information scalpers would have.

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Did you see the part about selling to kids who don't have much money?

The solution there is to play at more venues, or play at more crappier venues.

If the kids didn't buy at the time, that means they didn't buy them before when the tickets were more expensive. Which means that also wouldn't be interested in buying the more expensive scalped tickets either.

Put into context: Tickets are $30 - kid doesn't buy them next day Tickets are $29 - scaler buys them before the kid

The kid has already decided that $30 is too much. For the resale to be worth it, it would need to be more than $1 gains, but that is more than the kid has already associated the value to be

What if the kid passes at $30 because money is tight, they’d prefer to pay $20 and want to try for that, but scalpers snatch up all the cheapest tickets before the kid is able to. The kid still really wants to go, however, and is willing to actually pay the scalper up to $40 when push comes to shove, even if it hurts a bit?

Or if they weren’t organized enough or able to commit to going early on, but still have the purchasing power to pay a higher price?

Then they learned a valuable lesson?

I mean, this seems like a low stakes operation. Nobody on their deathbed is like, "If only that Taylor Swift ticket had cost $10 less."

See my response to your sibling comment.

Yeah, the price/time algorithm for the auction can't accommodate every single kid's temporal and financial idiosyncracies. Compared to what?

I was mostly asking because the explanation in the parent comment seemed overly simplistic, and to indicate that this approach would destroy the scalpers’ business model entirely. I’m totally open to the idea that this is a good solution that would improve on the status quo.

They don’t buy them regardless, bots already bought everything out.

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