Ask Lemmy

Because people keep buying the tickets even though they aren't a necessity. This should be an easy boycott.

If Pearl Jam couldn’t fix it in the 90s and Taylor swift couldn’t fix it in the 2020s that tells you just how much money is behind them.

Because people keep giving them money

They haven't actually got a full monopoly. You can give axs money. You can in some cases go to the box office ahead of time like it's 1980.

If you want to see taytay, you are indeed going to pay ticketmaster, but the only way to defeat them is by not giving them money.

There are currently lawsuits against them, but it takes time. This is from NC Attorney General Jeff Jackson's newsletter earlier this year:

"The People vs. Ticketmaster/Live Nation

I’m forcing myself to only pick one case to go into detail about - but it’s a great one.

Let’s say you want to make a bunch of money by supplying live entertainment, primarily the music industry.

Well, the three big pieces in that business are:

The venue

The right to promote the event

The right to sell the tickets

Now imagine you control each of those. You own venues, and you promote the events, and you sell the tickets.

Congratulations - you’re a monopoly.

You’ve achieved vertical integration within your business, which means the sum of those parts has unlocked the ability to gouge customers with the confidence that they won’t be able to find a competitor to offer them a better deal. And using your monopoly to further entrench your power to charge customers higher prices is against the law.

This is exactly what I, along with a bipartisan group of AGs, allege that Ticketmaster/Live Nation has done.

They've turned concert ticket fees into something fans call the “Ticketmaster Tax.” These are the “convenience fees,” “processing fees,” and “handling fees” that add up quickly, inflating ticket prices by huge margins.

Why can they get away with it? Because they've locked venues into exclusive contracts, squeezing out any chance of competition.

But it gets worse. If venues try to resist and explore other options, Live Nation retaliates by threatening to strip venues of popular acts. The internal emails from Live Nation executives detailed in our lawsuit are explicit and awful.

Which means, if you’re an independent venue that doesn't use Ticketmaster, good luck booking artists. Ticketmaster controls ticket sales and Live Nation controls promotion, so artists who are promoted by Live Nation typically won't be allowed to perform at venues that refuse to use Ticketmaster for ticketing.

This is textbook unlawful monopoly behavior. Consumers are paying higher prices and artists and venues are suffering from reduced competition and income.

The good news is that Live Nation just tried - but failed - to get our lawsuit dismissed. That’s a big step toward accountability, including our ultimate request that Live Nation be required to divest Ticketmaster, which it acquired in 2011 and which became the linchpin for much of their monopolistic behavior."

Deregulation and regulatory capture

Capitalism inevitably regressed to end stage.

We were warned in the 90's.

And congratulations, the current US administration now considers you a terrorist. Complaining about being abused and exploited is anti-capitalist.

🎶 The answer is always capitalism 🎵

The answer is capitalism, I know

No it isnt. Its because dumb cunts keep on giving them money. Dont blame FOMO on capitalism. Every single one of us has the 100% choice of not going, and not paying those stupid prices.

On the legal side of things, the DOJ has on going investigations into Live nation-Ticketmaster threatening venues is they use AXS or SeatGeek. Nothing has been done about, not even fines. Live nation-Ticketmaster also lobbys congress and others, and spends A LOT to make sure that its always sunny for them.

https://www.justice.gov/archives/opa/pr/justice-department-sues-live-nation-ticketmaster-monopolizing-markets-across-live-concert

Because anti-capitalists are afraid to throw a punch.

Something happened in the last 20 years where billionaires were able to buy the government and monopolies are now no longer illegal or controlled.

I have a rare one, i've NEVER purchased a ticket through ticketmaster, so i'm glad they never got my money. Too much free/cheap live music local to me anyway.

Why? As with most awful things in America, the answer is Ronald Reagan.

Got to smaller shows at local clubs

Basically, through mergers and acquisitions they're dominating the venue market. It used to be that there were many actors, but now everything is everything under the Ticketmaster umbrella.

It's convenient for artists, as they only have one point if contact needed per location in terms of booking, ticket sales, merch, and everything else around the concert/event.

It's convenient for venues, as Ticketmaster brings in business. However, it's a double edged sword: Do something Ticketmaster doesn't approve of, such as use a competitor, and you're not getting the big headliners.

It's awful for the rest of us, as we then have to deal with a monopoly pushing up the prices.

I am cautiously optimistic about the long term outlook, though: The Ticketmaster hate is widespread to the point where some artists refuse to work with them, as they feel their fans are getting robbed with the band getting the blame. And they are the ones with the leverage to turn things around - artists with integrity will put their fans first, and that is what will hopefully bring long term change for the better.

Here's why you're getting enshittified: we deliberately decided to stop enforcing competition laws. As a result, companies formed monopolies and cartels. This means that they don't have to worry about losing your business or labor to a competitor, because they don't compete. It also means that they can handily capture their regulators, because they can easily agree on a set of policy priorities and use the billions they've amassed by not competing to capture their regulators. They can hold a whip hand over their formerly powerful tech workers, mass-firing them and terrorizing them out of any Tron-inspired conceits about "fighting for the user." Finally, they can use IP law to shut down anyone who makes technology that disenshittifies their offerings.

You can take care to avoid enshittification, you can even make a fetish out of it, but without addressing these systemic failings, your individual actions will only get you so far. Sure, use privacy-enhancing tools like Signal to communicate with other people, but if the only way to get your kid to their little league game is to join the carpool group on Facebook, you're going to hemorrhage data about everything you do to Meta.

https://pluralistic.net/2025/07/31/unsatisfying-answers/#systemic-problems