The problem is that unless you banned secondary sales entirely, it even with a lottery it still ultimately comes down to a game of who's willing to open their wallet the widest. People will still just enter a bunch of lotteries for the most popular artists and then sell/trade their tickets to get into the show they actually wanted. I think the best we can do is to just preventing mass purchases of tickets by resellers.

The aspect of some people missing out because all the cheap seats sold out in a flash is just how supply and demand works in capitalism, though. We may as well also question why housing, cars, and healthcare are so damn expensive too if we're going to go down that rabbit hole.

Yeah, the last major lawsuit was a class action IIRC. Here I was hoping for more points redeemable for tickets to bands you’ll pretend to enjoy.

Still, Ticketmaster does suck giant hairy donkey balls, so if the current administration has it in for them, I'll defer to the wisdom of the late Grumpy Cat for this one.

Me: Is there a non-zero chance that Elon Musk is actually a lizard in a human suit?
ChatGPT: Short answer: logically - yes (almost anything logically possible has a non-zero probability).

Headline: ChatGPT says Elon Musk is a lizard in a human suit.

This is basically what the major theme parks do. They got fed up with unauthorized ticket resellers quite awhile ago.

Google is an advertising company, so they're probably using data they collect via your interactions with their AI in order to... you guessed it... show you ads.

I probably should've been clearer that one of the objections bands probably have to this is the piracy aspect. The second you put a good quality stream online, someone will capture and share it.

Usually most bigger name acts do put out a video of their show at the end of the tour. Granted, the waiting sucks.

Ever seen the pricing of the merch on Taylor Swift's store, or how she'll release like 15 different color variants of the same vinyl record at $30 a pop? The only problem she has with price gouging is when she's not the one scoring the profits.

Or it could just be some lawyers looking for another payday. Can never have too many yachts, beachfront homes, or luxury RVs.

Last time they got sued, my partner and I ended up with a whole bunch of credits/points/some type of virtual scrip that could be redeemed to see bands we'd never heard of. I'm totally looking forward to being able to score free tickets to Ryan and The Chumbuckets - A Nickelback Tribute at some bar in Tampa.

Or just wait until the first night of the tour for someone to capture the stream and upload it to the high seas.

I think most people attend concerts for the experience of going with someone else. Significant other, besties, lover on the side (just don't get caught on the kiss cam), etc. Also, live music is a completely different experience with the roar of the crowd, the drinks and junk food, and how absolutely insanely loud the sound system is. Streaming the show from home isn't the same thing, and I don't see too many people really going for that option.

Yeah, I was talking about the brick-and-mortar stores. If you need an appliance yesterday and are heading out to pick one up with your truck, Costco's selection is very limited.

Actually, Apple still sells the iPhone 13. We don't know what they're actually charging for it, since it's only sold through carrier partner channels to prepaid carriers, but they do still offer an inexpensive phone. Retail, it's $200. They've been doing this for awhile, where ostensibly "discontinued" models continue being produced for a bit longer for a second life as prepaid phones. Apple has a lot more baked-in profit margin in their pricing than you might realize.

Chromebooks are still cheaper. Granted, I know we hate the cloud here on /., but the average non-techie buyer is just going to see the price tag and that the Chromebook handles basic computing tasks just fine.

I know inflation has been a bit out the wazoo lately, but $600 still buys a fairly decent entry level PC laptop. This seems to me more like Apple attempting to hold the line, since in this economy there are probably more than a few Mac users still rocking some Jurassic era hardware and Apple doesn't want to see them say "screw it" and jump ship.

More like "frustrated that they can't upgrade the RAM in their laptops". Last time I went laptop shopping, the ones that didn't have soldered down everything were few and far between. You're lucky these days if there's a M.2 slot to upgrade the storage.

I recall laughing at these Samsung fridges when I first saw one on display at Best Buy. They're expensive and the screen really is just a gimmick.

There's your problem. Costco is primarily where people go to buy a truckload of toilet paper and 50 lbs of frozen chicken breasts, not appliances, so their selection tends to be quite limited. They do have a pretty decent return policy and it looks like Walmart still sells your original toaster.