[mabub24]

TicketMaster might actually compete with Comcast for the most universally reviled company in NA. It's as if every single component of their business has been designed to piss off their customers. I'm aware that, for TM, it's much more that event planners and venues are their prioritized customers, but I'm at a point in my life where I will refuse to go to any event that uses TM. TM could easily make their systems work better, but they just feel no need to out of naked greed and market capture.

[inasmuch]

I work for a ticketing company (not TM) and can confirm this is 100% true. We are completely beholden to our clients and as long as I've been working here our entire roadmap has been a reactionary, ever-growing list of demands from clients and potential clients with little to no consideration of the customer experience.

The whole industry operates on exclusivity of inventory (in this regard, Comcast and other ISPs are quite apt comparisons), so it simply does not matter how much customers hate the company selling the tickets, because their only options are to buy from them, buy at a higher price from scalpers (or the increasingly popular scalping platforms), or not attend the event at all. I think you're pretty rare in your commitment to the third option.

[prepend]

I used to prefer buying from scalpers because paying more for a simple experience was easier than TM.

Even if you make it through the crazy fees and whatnot, they spam you. If I buy a ticket from some random ebay seller, that doesn’t happen. I risk ticket fraud over the definite unhappy experience of using TM.