[kbenson]

> At Google it was always "We don't take an editorial stand, this might be just what some of our customers want."

It's an interesting choice for companies, and Google in particular. Either be proactive and get accused of forcing your customers behavior or having ulterior motives based on money (e.g. Google's ad blocking program), or let them do what they want and get accused of turning a blind eye because it makes more money.

That said, I have little sympathy for Google in this case. They made the choice to go for ad revenue as their business model years ago, and it may have been the most feasible path to success when they did so, but that doesn't mean the perverse incentives weren't obvious at every single step along that path.

I work in the event ticketing secondary markets. That is, I work for a brokerage and buys and sells event tickets for a profit. I mention this because a lot of people have a very negative view of this industry (some of it misinformed, some very well founded in the actions of some bad actors). We run an above-board shop and make money through lots of analytics and targeted investment, and I sleep fine I night. I'm not sure I would if I was employed in certain departments of Google or Facebook.

[Balgair]

Google can't take an editorial position, they are forbidden (sort-of) from doing so by law: 47 U.S.C. § 230, Communication Decency Act (1996).

Per the recent Wired article on FB: "This is the section of US law that shelters internet intermediaries from liability for the content their users post. If Facebook were to start creating or editing content on its platform, it would risk losing that immunity"[0]

The EFF has a good piece on the importance that this law be upheld[1]. Basically, from ISPs to Craigslist, the internet can repost/report on potentially horrific stuff without being in trouble themselves as the 'host'.

If Google were to take an editorial position, they are afraid they will run afoul of this law and be held liable.

[0]https://www.wired.com/story/inside-facebook-mark-zuckerberg-...

[1]https://www.eff.org/issues/cda230

[wanderer2323]

When you are training your search models you take editorial position all the time. There is no 'one single truth' of what the search results should be, let alone what the search-related artifacts (query suggestions, drill-downs, answers, etc) should be.

Real people go to work every day to label images as 'corresponding' or 'not corresponding' to a query, different people write guidelines for these labeling, other people curate which queries to label and which labeled results to train, etc etc.

In theory, all these people or at least their accumulated work produce some kind of 'neutral' result; in reality, a systemic bias on some of these levels can easily have an editorial effect that is impossible to prove.

[Balgair]

I'm certain that this is going to come up in anti-trust suits as a violation of Section 230. I can't see how it isn't editing the content that folk's see, despite the complexity of the ML. Judges don't like being told 'oh, it's too complex to understand, gee-shucks!' let us get away with it.

Surprisingly, such a ruling will have some philosophic ramifications about the ability for a computer to think and then edit. Though the case is unlikely to hinge on that semantic point, it will be talked about in lawyer bars.

[mulmen]

I'm curious, what value does your ticket brokerage create?

[kbenson]

For customers, liquidity and price accuracy, ticket availability, and the chance for discount tickets (in the case where brokers make a bad call or execute badly, which happens often).

For venues and promoters, guaranteed attendance and immediate cashflow (sell 50,000 tickets at an average of $80 immediately instead of spread over 9-12 months, that's money that can be invested back into their business or something else, and reduces risk).

For artists and promoters, the capability to hold back chunks of inventory for later sale on the secondary market at increased cost. This allows them to take advantage of a functioning market to make more money while also avoiding fan displeasure at high ticket prices. Also, the ability to say they sold out X size venue in Y time, which can denote popularity (or be used to claim a level of popularity).

Brokers take on risk for a possible reward. If you're buying tickets that aren't intended for immediate resale, and are holding them for 9-12 months (common), anything can happen in that time period. That artist may become less popular, or even just get sick and cancel much of the tour (in which case you just had your money tied up for months, at best losing out on other investments and at worst paying some percentage on a credit account), which is a loss.

It's not really all that different than other financial markets.

Edit: As much as some artists like to complain about the secondary market, there's a really simple solution that just works. Increase supply. Garth Brooks plays twice a night and multiple days in a row in the same venue at each stop on a tour. Kid Rock will play seven consecutive days in a row in Detroit. The downside? They move the risk from the brokers to the venue, promoters and artist, because they may lose money if they don't fill enough seats. This itself is an illustration of the role the secondary market plays, and indeed heavily bought events with inflated prices often get additional dates added which depress the market prices.

[throwawayjava]

Engineering ethics takes two forms: "what should I build" and "how should I build it".

I tend to prefer "engineering ethics" courses that focus on the second question because the first question is completely parametric in more general ethical and even political considerations.

It's true that engineers should take a course of study in pure ethics to learn how to think through questions of the first variety, but I'm not sure if engineering departments are the right ones to house/teach that particular course.

[logicallee]

>I work in the event ticketing secondary markets. That is, I work for a brokerage and buys and sells event tickets for a profit.

FYI you work for a ticket scalping shop, which is why you put so much verbiage there rather than saying so.

Based on what you've written, it's not clear what your firm adds to the world through its analytics and "investment". Which is why people don't like scalpers. Other than the scalpers, who else is better off if audience members pay a surplus over list price? (Or end up not going, as you've bought the last seats and priced them out.)

This is why "scalper" has worse connotation than "advertiser." (I don't work in advertising.)

By all means please let me know if you generate some value I am ignorant about, as you explicitly state is often the case ("misinformed").

[kbenson]

> Based on what you've written, it's not clear what your firm adds to the world through its analytics and "investment".

Perhaps if you read the thread a bit more, you would have found my answers to these questions, and you could formulate useful questions that didn't ask for things that have already been provided.

If you would like to follow up to that comment with questions or complaints about how I've presented myself or the industry I work in, feel free to do so. I would be happy to engage with you on any criticisms you have on the points I've presented, I only hope you approach it in a less hostile manner than you have here.

[logicallee]

The other comment by lovich says:

>I've worked in that industry as well and I have a very negative view of it still, even discounting the bad actors. Everything you do can be above board and still be douchey.

As far as your points, I have this specific question:

- Where you write, "For venues and promoters, guaranteed attendance and immediate cashflow."

Why is there "guaranteed attendance"? I don't understand what you could have meant by it.

[kbenson]

> - Where you write, "For venues and promoters, guaranteed attendance and immediate cashflow."

> Why is there "guaranteed attendance"? I don't understand what you could have meant by it.

That's an inaccurate description on my part for what I meant. It's not guaranteed attendance, it's guaranteed sales regardless of attendance (although generally the seats are sold, even if at an extreme discount). It's guaranteed money available early on in the event lifetime.

For an example of this, look at this TicketMaster event[1], and the corresponding StubHub page. All reserved seating is $45 on TM, and there's still plenty of tickets available, and the floor tickets are $49.50, and they are still available as well. Now look at the secondary market (StubHub, in this example), and you'll see Floor seats starting at $19, Orchestra seats starting at just under $30, Lower Balcony seats starting at under $11, and Upper Balcony at $29 (I'm not sure why it's higher, I suspect this market isn't very liquid, and/or those are mostly non-brokers selling expecting to get more money back than is likely to happen).

I have a few take-aways from this specific example (and it's by no means my job to make these assessments, I'm a software engineer, I write in-house tools and connect to APIs):

- People expecting to make money on the secondary market here are losing a lot of money. Exchange fees are generally between 7-10% of sale price for brokers, depending on volume, and TicketMaster initial display prices generally are not including all the other fees. A single Floor ticket (listed as $49.50) actually shows a subtotal of $67.45 if you attempt to purchase it through TicketMaster right now.

- The venue, promoters and artist have all that money put down for overbought tickets. Even if all the tickets held by brokers eventually sell, and even if they sold at a profit, those stakeholders have been able to make use of that money in the last three months since the tickets went on sale and most brokers invested, while the brokers have not. The artist and promoters have left money on the table in their pricing (which brokers attempt to capitalize on) but in exchange for that they get less risk (more sales at a low price) and more money at an earlier stage.

This example is fairly generous to brokers in that it's an event where they are subsidizing users, but I think it's an important example to bring up because so many people don't even account for this in their reasoning. Whether brokers make money or not, some of the same things apply, such as stakeholders getting money early and having a fairly good (most the time) accounting of demand for a sale by outsourcing that aspect to the crowd. It's an added benefit that artists and promoters (and venues) they can take large chunks of tickets that were never sold on the primary market and sell on the secondary market for additional profit.

In some aspects of what they do, ticket brokers are like high frequency traders, in other aspects, they perform other market functions (I'm a novice at best in the stock market, so I'd be hard pressed to explain this in detail).

1: https://www1.ticketmaster.com/event/1B005363D07BB554

2: https://www.stubhub.com/queens-of-the-stone-age-tickets-quee...

[logicallee]

Thank, this was very interesting. You should write a blog post about your understanding of the secondary ticket market, working in that industry. What you've written is an interesting contrast to the underlying assumptions outsiders have about it.

I can't speak to whether you accurately see the underlying trading strategies or not but your writing was interesting. Thanks for taking the time.

[lovich]

I've worked in that industry as well and I have a very negative view of it still, even discounting the bad actors. Everything you do can be above board and still be douchey