Why has nobody dethroned Ticketmaster? Because you and I were never its customers

The question

The Ask HN started from a specific grievance: trying to buy Knicks tickets at Madison Square Garden, the original poster watched resale markups push a roughly $2,000 ticket past $10,000, and asked why this kind of scalping is legal — and why, given how universally Ticketmaster is hated, no real competitor has emerged. The thread's answer reframes the entire question.

"I spent several years working for a competitor"

The most authoritative reply came from inside the industry, and explained why the market structure defeats challengers.

"I spent several years working for a competitor of Ticketmaster … there's the chicken and egg problem of content (events) and consumers … it's not uncommon for very large venues to get signed at a loss just for the content. You need the cash to compete, and the big boys will happily take a hit on the big venues to hold onto them." — someone who worked for a Ticketmaster competitor

The reframe: the fans were never the customer

The thread's central insight, stated several ways, is that Ticketmaster sells a service to venues and artists — taking the blame for high prices — not to ticket buyers.

"Ticketmaster's entire business model is based around taking the blame. Artists don't want to set a face value … that represent a realistic market-clearing price, for fear of being seen as greedy … the secret sauce is selling tickets for as much as possible, while allowing the artists to pretend that they're being sold for a 'fair' price." — jdietrich, on the blame-absorption model

"'convenience fees, surcharges, etc' are just creative financial tricks to funnel more money back to venues+promoters+artists but still keep the ticket's face price artificially low." — jasode, on where the fees actually go

That also explains why the company doesn't look wildly profitable: most of the topline is pass-through.

"You need to deduct at least 70% (or more) from their topline to get a true picture of the company's revenue vs revenue that walks straight out the door." — saaaaaam, on the pass-through economics

The lock-in is contractual, and old

The vertical integration with Live Nation is the structural moat, and the coercion is documented.

"They merged with LiveNation and they own half of the venues. The other half of the venues have exclusive deals with TicketMaster, who provides them with software to run venue logistics … creating vendor lock-in." — a director of engineering describing the integration

"Pearl Jam tried to tour without Ticketmaster in 1994 but several venues turned them down because of contracts … When signing with TM is survival … that's not a free choice. That's just coercion." — a commenter recalling Pearl Jam's failed boycott

In the UK the squeeze takes a different shape — exclusive multi-festival deals that box out independent events (on Live Nation's UK exclusivity). The only counter-example anyone could cite where the cycle broke wasn't a startup at all. It was regulation: Ontario's law capping resale at face value. The reason there's no "Ticketmaster killer" is that you can't out-compete a company whose moat is owning the buildings and absorbing the blame — and whose actual customers like the arrangement just fine.