The sneaky economics of Ticketmaster

It was the type of disaster that made Americans reconsider the concept of live music sales.An iconic female artist, whose popular love songs delighted multiple generations, announced a national tour for the first time in many years. Countless fans cleared their schedules to buy tickets the moment they went on sale.Alas, thousands of hopes were dashed. Tickets sold out instantly and were found for resale at up to 10x face value. Many people claimed they were “confused by the system.”That tour, of course, was… Barbra Streisand in Concert, in 1994.Long before millions of fans and bots crashed the Taylor Swift Eras Tour presale, supporters have felt jilted after trying to buy tickets to artists ranging from Babs to Miley Cyrus to Harry Styles and beyond.As with Swift, most of their ire has been directed at the same entity: Ticketmaster.The company, by far the most dominant ticketing platform in the world, now faces a class-action lawsuit from Swift fans. The DOJ has opened a broad antitrus...