Can someone create a meta-service that combines the offerings from TicketMonopolist and TicketCompetitor? Sort of like how chat clients like Adium/Pidgin had interfaces to lots of different messaging protocols and put all your contacts and conversations together. If it worked well, then the market might shift to lots of customers using the meta-service; and then, since TicketMonopolist charges higher prices, presumably it would start losing market share.
Something like this has been tried a few times with Craigslist, with services that grab data from it and provide a better interface: example. Craigslist seems to have used (a) terms of service requirements and (b) copyright claims to the users’ posts, for legal arguments. I think the copyright claim, for ads that are frequently 1-3 sentences, is risible (morally speaking). As for terms of service… I’m skeptical that the terms can simultaneously (1) be sane and enforceable, (2) allow customers to do what they currently do, and (3) prevent customers from using meta-services that collect the data and do things with it. (Versions of (3) that come to mind tend to forbid antivirus scanners, accessibility tools like screen readers, and web browsers in general.)
I think any aggregator has the same problem customers do: There’s only one place to buy the tickets. If the aggregator wants to sell tickets, they have to buy them from TicketMonopolist (and pay their fees), so they can’t sell tickets any cheaper without losing money.
For audio books, there are a bunch of distributors like this. For example, PublishDrive charges a monthly fee and distributes to every platform “for free”, but they can only give their customers the amount of money that Audible gives them, and Audible only gives them 25% royalties[1] (since they’re not exclusive).
The value-add of the aggregator, compared to TicketMonopolist, would be finding tickets in the cases where they’re available at one of the competitors. The aggregator would charge either a nominal fee or even zero fee when the customer ends up buying tickets that come from TicketMonopolist. Either there’s an upfront or subscription cost for using the aggregator, or they can charge a fee specifically on the non-Monopolist tickets.
(I assume part of the picture is that customers find it highly inconvenient to go to more than one place to find their tickets—otherwise TicketMonopolist couldn’t charge much of a premium, hosts would just use the competitors and the customers would find them there.)
Can someone create a meta-service that combines the offerings from TicketMonopolist and TicketCompetitor? Sort of like how chat clients like Adium/Pidgin had interfaces to lots of different messaging protocols and put all your contacts and conversations together. If it worked well, then the market might shift to lots of customers using the meta-service; and then, since TicketMonopolist charges higher prices, presumably it would start losing market share.
Something like this has been tried a few times with Craigslist, with services that grab data from it and provide a better interface: example. Craigslist seems to have used (a) terms of service requirements and (b) copyright claims to the users’ posts, for legal arguments. I think the copyright claim, for ads that are frequently 1-3 sentences, is risible (morally speaking). As for terms of service… I’m skeptical that the terms can simultaneously (1) be sane and enforceable, (2) allow customers to do what they currently do, and (3) prevent customers from using meta-services that collect the data and do things with it. (Versions of (3) that come to mind tend to forbid antivirus scanners, accessibility tools like screen readers, and web browsers in general.)
I think any aggregator has the same problem customers do: There’s only one place to buy the tickets. If the aggregator wants to sell tickets, they have to buy them from TicketMonopolist (and pay their fees), so they can’t sell tickets any cheaper without losing money.
For audio books, there are a bunch of distributors like this. For example, PublishDrive charges a monthly fee and distributes to every platform “for free”, but they can only give their customers the amount of money that Audible gives them, and Audible only gives them 25% royalties[1] (since they’re not exclusive).
For what it’s worth, PublishDrive passes on “up to” 45% of royalties for audiobooks on Apple Books, which is actually higher than ACX’s exclusive rate.
The value-add of the aggregator, compared to TicketMonopolist, would be finding tickets in the cases where they’re available at one of the competitors. The aggregator would charge either a nominal fee or even zero fee when the customer ends up buying tickets that come from TicketMonopolist. Either there’s an upfront or subscription cost for using the aggregator, or they can charge a fee specifically on the non-Monopolist tickets.
(I assume part of the picture is that customers find it highly inconvenient to go to more than one place to find their tickets—otherwise TicketMonopolist couldn’t charge much of a premium, hosts would just use the competitors and the customers would find them there.)