[rahim]

I think that might be in part because the people that attend solely for the gadgets probably only show up to pick up the freebies, so you aren't likely to run into them at the talks.

In my group of friends alone, I know of at least 10 people (non-developers with no interest to start) that got tickets last year, went up to I/O as a SF vacation, stopped by Moscone to pick up the freebies, then sold them off to pay for the trip and then some. While I, as a developer with an Android app published, didn't manage to get tickets last year nor this year.