This weekly roundup thread is intended for all culture war posts. 'Culture war' is vaguely defined, but it basically means controversial issues that fall along set tribal lines. Arguments over culture war issues generate a lot of heat and little light, and few deeply entrenched people ever change their minds. This thread is for voicing opinions and analyzing the state of the discussion while trying to optimize for light over heat.
Optimistically, we think that engaging with people you disagree with is worth your time, and so is being nice! Pessimistically, there are many dynamics that can lead discussions on Culture War topics to become unproductive. There's a human tendency to divide along tribal lines, praising your ingroup and vilifying your outgroup - and if you think you find it easy to criticize your ingroup, then it may be that your outgroup is not who you think it is. Extremists with opposing positions can feed off each other, highlighting each other's worst points to justify their own angry rhetoric, which becomes in turn a new example of bad behavior for the other side to highlight.
We would like to avoid these negative dynamics. Accordingly, we ask that you do not use this thread for waging the Culture War. Examples of waging the Culture War:
-
Shaming.
-
Attempting to 'build consensus' or enforce ideological conformity.
-
Making sweeping generalizations to vilify a group you dislike.
-
Recruiting for a cause.
-
Posting links that could be summarized as 'Boo outgroup!' Basically, if your content is 'Can you believe what Those People did this week?' then you should either refrain from posting, or do some very patient work to contextualize and/or steel-man the relevant viewpoint.
In general, you should argue to understand, not to win. This thread is not territory to be claimed by one group or another; indeed, the aim is to have many different viewpoints represented here. Thus, we also ask that you follow some guidelines:
-
Speak plainly. Avoid sarcasm and mockery. When disagreeing with someone, state your objections explicitly.
-
Be as precise and charitable as you can. Don't paraphrase unflatteringly.
-
Don't imply that someone said something they did not say, even if you think it follows from what they said.
-
Write like everyone is reading and you want them to be included in the discussion.
On an ad hoc basis, the mods will try to compile a list of the best posts/comments from the previous week, posted in Quality Contribution threads and archived at /r/TheThread. You may nominate a comment for this list by clicking on 'report' at the bottom of the post and typing 'Actually a quality contribution' as the report reason.
Jump in the discussion.
No email address required.
Notes -
Why does much of the public feel strongly entitled to below-market pricing for certain luxury goods and services? And on the flip side, why do some companies seem to intentionally yield profit to scalpers? Why not dynamically price every premium product/service in today's day and age?
Case study A: Taylor Swift is making the news for selling record amounts of tickets for her upcoming tour. The internet in response has been raging against Live Nation's monopoly, corporate greed, price gouging, bots, scalpers, and Citizens United over both the expensiveness and the lack of availability of her tickets. The brouhaha predates TS--over the past few months, it seems like every time a popular musician launches a tour, the same headlines resurface about greed, price gouging etc.
Case study B: Nvidia's 4000 series graphics cards have been catching flak for their pricing. Same talking points as above, minus the monopoly part because there is real competition in graphics cards.
All this seems silly to me:
Concert tickets, like most everything else, and especially like luxury goods and services, are fundamentally priced by supply and demand. The internet is livid that TS tickets are both expensive and then resold for even more, and directs its anger at TS, LN, and scalpers, arguing that real fans are being cheated somehow. But I don't understand how any of it is actually unfair. Is a concert goer a fake fan if s/he buys from the secondary market at a higher price rather than waiting in 8-hour-long virtual queues the moment tickets go on sale? Super Bowl tickets routinely sell for thousands or tens of thousands. Are your average working class fans being cheated somehow because they cannot afford that? And if the NFL set up a buggy virtual queuing system that allowed people who otherwise cannot afford it buy Super Bowl tickets at a hefty discount (maybe that's exactly how it works. Idk--I've never once thought of trying to buy SB tickets), should society be critical if they then turn around and resell said underpriced tickets for a profit, and then presume to spend the money on goods and services that deliver them more utility? It's not like there is anything particularly virtuous about making sure people who buy tickets to a ball game are committed to attending rather than being free to change their minds or profit from gross pricing inefficiencies.
Nvidia's 3000 series ran into extensive problems with extremely mismatched supply and demand for something like two years, and this of course led to plentiful scalping, which if nothing else is a huge waste of resources considering all the time and money spent on shuffling products to and from middlemen. For the 4000 series, Nvidia smartly priced its products substantially higher than before, which should reduce the mismatch and get inventory to people who want it the most. They can then cut prices and offer discounts once sales slow down in the coming months/years.
Live concerts and premium graphics cards are luxury goods and services. The songs themselves remain extremely affordable through streaming services, and graphics cards released 5 years ago can handle the vast majority of games so long as you do not insist on playing on max settings. It's hard for me to see anyone's rights are deprived because their desire to go to a live concert or play games at the highest settings cannot be met. All the outrage that that either TS or LN is price gouging just sounds so stupid--it's a concert, people. If you don't like the price, don't go. We're not talking about overcharging for gasoline prices when a hurricane is about to hit.
But ultimately, the above is all noise to me. The simplest solution seems to be just to price all luxury goods and services dynamically. Consumers understand that airline and hotel prices are heavily dependent on supply and demand--traveling the Wednesday before Thanksgiving will cost far more than the Wednesday a week later, and flying first will cost substantially more than economy. Hotels on weekends when large conferences are in town will be priced significantly more than otherwise, and suites cost more than standard rooms. There is no scalping that happens for either product because, aside from the TSA, tickets are priced using algorithms that adjust automatically so there is no need to scalp.
So why not do that? Why not dynamically price every luxury good in high demand? Disney does it for its parks. I didn't look too closely into it, but it seems like maybe TS opted into dynamic price this time around, but clearly it's not dynamic enough if there are any scalpers who still make a profit. As for graphics cards, I think the world is better off if Nvidia prereleases the 4000 series online a few weeks ahead of public releases (since traditional retailers can't dynamically price as easily); and during that prerelease period, use algorithms to fully satisfy demand at the market clearing price. Like I mentioned, scalping is a waste of resources and productivity for all, so get rid of it. If Nvidia can retain the vast majority of profits and recapture waste from middlemen shipping and handling, that capital can be redeployed to R&D or paid back in dividends, which then can be invested in other productive enterprises.
Companies, brands and individuals can face substantial PR backlash when they charge a true market price for something in exceptionally high demand. For example, in your airline-and-hotel-prices-around-the-holidays example, it's possible that the airlines could charge even more of a premium for that Wednesday-before-Thanksgiving ticket than they do, but they figure the extra profit for one day isn't worth the negative publicity.
In Taylor Swift's case, I'm assuming that it's easier to let her fans be pissed off at scalpers than at her, if she was the one charging $20k or whatever for a ticket to one of her shows. She's already rich as Croesus and will make plenty of bank of this tour as it is. She probably craves public adoration more than money at this point.
As far as "why does much of the public feel strongly entitled to below-market pricing for certain luxury goods and services" goes, another commenter already pointed out that it's as simple as "I want this thing I can't afford so badly that I've convinced myself it's somehow an injustice that I'm not getting it". It's the same vibe you get from certain self-described incels when they're in "bailey" mode ("oh, why won't that beautiful girl who works out every day and spends an hour a night on her skin care routine date me even though I don't put any effort into my own physical appearance because that's for losers").
That's more true with flying during Thanksgiving because of the sentimentality around seeing family, but not so much if we're talking about taking a nonstop first class flight from LAX to JFK that gets you home by 8pm. I'd place a sold-out Taylor Swift concert closer to the latter than the former.
You're certainly right that people still irrationally feel what they want to feel, but my response here then is it's up to the industry and its stars to correct such misconceptions. Music fans should be taught that it's natural to self-sort their exposure to their stars based on what they can afford: if you have $10, buy CDs or stream. If you have $100, buy nosebleed seats. If you have a $1000, come on back stage. This really isn't some kind of awful dystopia. Just look at movie stars! The masses get to see them in movie theaters or streaming for a handful of dollars. You don't have some kind of claim to be able to see them perform live for $50. If you want to hobnob with them in person (appearing in promotional panels doesn't count because they are PR events with immediate costs in hopes of recuping long term returns, whereas concerts are meant to be fundamentally profitable and sustainably so), you'd need to shell out a lot more, perhaps by buying your way through some kind of charity gala.
I also argue it's a bit simplistic to think that just because TS is rich, she should forget about maximizing profit. If that same mentality applied broadly to the economy, perhaps consumers would be better off very briefly, but in the long run we suffer collectively as innovation grinds to a halt and capital is deployed inefficiently.
I mean, what you listed, with some modifications, was working, and most people were fine with. The issue is, now those nosebleeds are $300 with another $100 of "fees" tacked on, if you can get to the tickets before some scalper buys 5,000 seats from his basement.
More options
Context Copy link
More options
Context Copy link
More options
Context Copy link
More options
Context Copy link