A closer look
Ticketmaster controls roughly eighty percent of the primary ticketing market for major live events, allowing them to slap consumers with arbitrary convenience fees that can easily double the original price of a concert ticket. Because they merged with Live Nation, they effectively control the venues, the artists' tours, and the ticketing platform, creating a textbook monopoly that leaves music fans with literally no alternative options. You are forced to pay exorbitant processing charges for a digital barcode that costs them absolutely zero cents to generate. They are universally despised by almost everyone on earth, yet they continue to post record-breaking profits because capitalism heavily rewards inescapable extortion
