Mom's will demand it to treat their kids runny nose. Hand soap makers will use it to create "antibacterial" soap. Cattle yards will give it as a prophylactic. It'll be effective for about the next 15 minutes.

Underpricing = Pricing the tickets below what the market will pay for them as a way to please the artist, venue, etc... If someone gets a ticket they then want to resell, say as a gift or to an event they can no-longer attend, why should the government get to tell them they can NOT do that just because folks are jealous or angry about the prices?

Yep. 100%. Reddit might even be worse. Wherever their are mods, there are censorious communists wanting to abuse them to prevent any real discussion.

Easier to downmod than to debate. Slashdot is becoming a left-wing echo chamber and, because of this, has been fading for years. Any day now I expect to see it bought and replaced with a bunch of flashing banner ads.

Who said you did? Nobody is here to have a limited/coddled debate with you about only the points you'd like to discuss.

You're having severe problems with reading comprehension if you think anyone ever said anything close to that. It might be the debate you want to have, but it's not the debate you are in. Don't be broke and you can afford to outbid others for the tickets you want.

Asking the government to help you is trying to use a sledgehammer to swat a fly. What's next, do you want to outlaw standing in line to buy something for someone else? Ban reselling or exchanging birthday gifts when you have a duplicate? Do people own those tickets or don't they?

A couple of mainstream media articles that show folks are possibly scalping some tickets in Canada are proof of what, exactly? Where is the "huge problem" you referred to earlier? People are reselling tickets they bought. Sounds enterprising. I'm utterly failing to see the problem at all. Sounds like "Scalpers exist, ergo, we must have government intervention." Your "huge problem" is probably that you're a broke bitch who got outbid on a concert or show you wanted to see. Sound about right?

I'm not angry at rich people for being able to do things I cannot because they have more money. That makes one of us.

I see no reason to empower the government to regulate the ticket market. "There are scalpers" isn't good enough. You aren't entitled to cheap tickets if someone else wants to pay more. What is hard to understand about that?

I've been to two of those three over the years, yes. The tickets most certainly didn't cost $20k. You're just full of shit. Look it up. The average cost of last year's superbowl tickets was $5,477 just days before on Stubhub. Last years World Series was $998–$1,213. So, first, stop lying.

Next, consider that even if some folks resold their tickets, there was both a willing buyer and seller and neither needed the government's help. The fact that someone like you was standing off to the side wishing the government would bend over that seller so you could fuck them, isn't really germane. I can't help it if you're too broke to go to any given event. It's how markets work. If someone wants to go to the event worse than you do, they might pay more. We don't need to turn to Communism because you're jealous.

Oh, I see, sample size of 1 is too much for you to take but "Trust me bro" is your rejoinder? If your "data points" are so compelling why didn't you cite any, tough guy?

I was obviously taking the piss. But since you asked nicely...

Scalpers only exist because primary sellers deliberately under-price and under-supply tickets (often because of pressure from artists, venues, or politicians who want to look like they’re "keeping prices affordable").

That artificial shortage creates a massive arbitrage opportunity. Scalpers are just people who noticed the gap between what the ticket is legally allowed to cost and what it’s actually worth to fans on the day. Banning resale doesn’t magically create more tickets or make the original sellers charge market prices. It just drives the exact same transaction underground (cash in car parks, fake names, VPNs, whatever). The scalper still gets paid; you just get worse consumer protection and zero transparency.

The real winners? The insiders who get allocated thousands of tickets ‘for sponsors/fan club/family & friends’ and quietly flip them at market rates while the law pretends it’s stopping ‘greedy capitalists’. Funny how that works.

If Ticketmaster et al were forced to auction seats to the highest bidder from day one (or at least allow unrestricted resale), prices would be higher up front and then you’d actually know what the damn thing costs instead of playing the Hunger Games refresh button lottery and still paying $300 to a scalper six months later. So yeah, the regulation is theatre. It punishes retail fans twice (queue bots + black market premiums) while protecting the cartels that caused the shortage in the first place. But sure, let’s cosplay as if capping resale at face value + $10 handling somehow makes the market ‘safer’. Feels over reals strikes again.

I think it's perfectly fine if someone resells their ticket. If the market will bear that cost/resell, then so be it. I go to concerts, sporting events, and other big events and have for decades in multiple large cities. I've NEVER had a problem. It's a false dichotomy to present the situation as if it's either the tender mercies of the government or everything will be scalped. Don't be a simpleton.

Never skalped a ticket in my life. The one time I ever bought one second-hand was for a person who couldn't get them at the time and I was glad for the chance so they could join us at the event. I'm not scared of the free market and much more wary of the government.

I've been to several big events this year and haven't had a damn bit of trouble buying tickets through the standard channels. So, I call bullshit. I'll take my chances with the scalpers rather than risk the government making a dog's dinner of anything they touch.

Thank $dog that governments limit our ability to buy things. That nasty free-market is so UNSAFE. Pffft.