[Androsynth]

yeah I'm confused, isn't scalping a necessary side effect of the process? It seems natural if you sell tickets at a constant price over time and don't adjust that for higher demand (as event gets closer in time) or lower supply (as tickets are sold).

Also, is scalping a bad thing? It seems to me that they are making the market more efficient.

[joezydeco]

Scalping confuses demand.

If 1000 people want to see a show in a theatre with 1000 seats, that would be an ideal market. But in reality you get 2000 people trying to buy tickets for that show. 1000 are the fans and 1000 are people trying to buy the tickets to flip them for a profit.

The artificial demand creates a market that benefits nobody except the scalpers. The fan loses by paying higher prices, and the artist loses (sometimes) by leaving money on the table. This is why Madonna and the Eagles are charging $750 for front row seats.

[dkokelley]

The artificial demand you mention is essentially speculation. The scalpers are betting that the actual price attendees are willing to pay is higher than the initial selling price, which leads them to buy the ticket. This system still requires players who ultimately purchase the tickets for the utility of seeing the show. If $100 tickets ultimately get sold for $2,000 to actual attendees, the original seller significantly underpriced their tickets. There was a full market of people willing to buy the tickets for $2,000 for the show. Scalpers didn't mess with this market or confuse demand. They made the market efficient. The fans who valued the show the most got the enjoyment utility of attending. This system primarily hurts the fans who couldn't afford the more expensive tickets. On the other hand, without a secondary market, the fans who valued the show the most are harmed.

The only way that scalpers can create artificial demand is if there are no attendees willing to pay the price scalpers want to charge. In that scenario, scalpers sell to other scalpers at higher and higher prices, and the last person (scalper) to buy loses. If the last scalper buys the ticket for $4,000 and there is no party willing to buy the ticket for at least that AND see the show, the scalper is left with two options - go to the show (which by definition for the scalper provides less utility than the ticket price warrants), or sell the ticket at a loss (or possibly for $0, if there are no buyers).

I think there is a good analogy to other forms of speculation, particularly in commodities. Speculators "drive up" the price of oil by buying and selling it for more and more, but as long as consumers are willing to pay for that oil, the price is justified, and the original sellers forfeited their potential profit.

Granted, oil and housing speculation can lead to bad things for the economy as a whole. Here I think the analogy fails, since tickets are inherently a temporary market with an expiration date. Without an expiration date you can have bubbles, and bubbles can burst.

[brianpan]

I'm definitely not an econ expert (far from it). Scalpers may not be confusing demand. But aren't they're artificially constraining supply? There are a limited number of shows and seats available.

If I'm a scalper and I buy the last 100 seats (or rather, I have the last 100 seats not taken by someone who actually is going), I can now sell the tickets at a premium. If there are only 75 more fans that want to go, they are forced to come to me and the prices go up artificially. I can still profit without selling all the tickets. Without me the scalper, there would have been enough tickets to go around at face value.

Yes, the price is going up because people are willing to pay for it, but without the scalper it wouldn't have happened.

[xenophanes]

It's not scalpers who are constraining supply.

If a show has 1000 seats, and 900 fans buy the first 900, and never consider reselling at any price, then they are the ones constraining supply relative to an efficient market. (And there's nothing wrong with that, shrug.) The scalpers, by reselling tickets instead of just holding them and ignoring the market price, actually are increasing the amount of tickets available on the market, not lowering it.

Imagine if there were zero scalpers. Then it sells out and price goes to infinity. How can price go to infinity? Because supply is being constrained to zero because people refuse to consider reselling. Scalpers delay that some and keep the market more robust, while also making a profit from underpriced tickets.

And you can never ever sell a ticket to someone for more than the value of the show to them, so the buyers never lose.

All they are "losing" is the ability to get underpriced tickets (tickets for less than they are willing to pay) from the original seller who could have charged more (since he controlled all the tickets) but, for whatever reason, preferred to leave some money on the table for scalpers.

[vacri]

wow... you consider a market to be something which maximises all possible monies rather than something where you obtain something for use. No wonder this 'scalpers are helping the system' theme sounds crazy.

[pessimizer]

No, xenophanes is simply explaining how markets work. Markets are supposed to maximize utility, whether that be monies or laughter at a concert. If a price is too low for demand, any opening that allows middlemen to creep in, raise the price to demand levels, and take the difference, will be taken. If the resellers price too low, they'll just generate an opening for re-resellers.

The problem, for me, isn't with scalpers, it's with income and wealth distribution (which separates nominal demand from actual benefit to useful people), with over-regulation of commercial performance (limiting the number of venues through regulatory capture), and with the destruction of local community (since there are no local acts anymore, everyone chases the same small number of national and international ones.)

Of course Louie C.K. generates a massive demand - in a country of 300 million people, he's one of the 50 comedians that anybody has heard of because he makes it into the national media. When the average person can name a few comedians that live and work in their neighborhood, going to a Louie C.K. show will be considered a luxury good AND the price will go down.

[jessriedel]

In the short term, there are a fixed number of hard drives (and beach balls, and microwave ovens, ...). Why don't we have to worry about hard drive scalpers artificially constraining the supply?

[jamesbritt]

Interesting question. It made think of another situation.

How often would CK have to perform to make scalping essentially a non-issue?

More than once a year I would guess. But once a month? Every week?

What factors determine this?

[jessriedel]

It would be determined mostly by price, and this would just be another version of the supply/demand curve. If he sells the tickets at $20 each, then 100k will want to see his show. At $50 each, 10k people, and so on.

[invisible]

There is a much smaller quantity of seats that need to be acquired to scalp the market and push out competition. The spread is much higher if you know there is a relatively high demand that cannot be justifiably spent elsewhere.

[brianpan]

Shows are much more constrained. It's the very specific "skilled labor" involved (only one person can produce a show in only one city, maybe two a night). Imagine if you needed a hard drive factory in each city and only one factory could run at a time.

I can't buy a show for Denver. I might not even be able to buy a show for Friday nights. That severely limits the pool of "supply" I can buy from. Louis might be in my city once a year for a few days if I'm lucky.

[joezydeco]

You're right: it's speculation. I should have used that term outright.

The problem I see is that it's speculation with a known outcome. If I buy gas or oil forward contracts, it's a play with non-zero risk. Iran might declare war or we might invent Mr Fusion tomorrow. So far so good.

But with a concert, let's be a bit more realistic. If the Rolling Stones decide to tour and play in your town this year you can be 100.00% sure the concert would sell out. If they quadrupled the dates in that town, they would still sell out. For a given set of acts that scalpers target, there is no possible way that there is a risk of scalpers holding expired tickets...unless they get greedy.

[dkokelley]

I think the terms "no possible way" and "100% sure" are inappropriate for an economic discussion. There's always the possibility of some event occurring.

What you're implying is that there is infinite demand for a Rolling Stones concert at any price. As far as I know, this is a concept on the extreme edge of economic theory. Maybe there could be infinite demand for necessities like oxygen should we be forced to make a decision, but for a concert the notion is absurd. If the tickets were priced at $1,000,000 per seat, I doubt you would sell out.

The bottom line is that there IS an appropriate price which will maximize consumer and producer surplus utility (the positive difference between what you were willing to buy/sell the goods for and what you actually bought/sold the goods for), and scalpers/secondary markets will exist when the principal seller misprices the tickets. Without the secondary markets, that ideal price will probably not be reached, and there will be a shortage or surplus of the goods.

[sambe]

How is there artificial demand? The scalpers aren't buying tickets for fun - there has to be someone to flip them TO. These people are fans and they create the demand, as stated in the grandparent.

Edit: a common "rebuttal" in this thread (see diek, potch, drivingmenuts) seems to be that there is an assumption of correct market price being the aim. That isn't the assumption or the point. The point is that excess demand creates the problem. There are several approaches to this (first come first served, lottery, aftermarket) but getting rid of scalpers doesn't solve the fundamental problem. The only thing they (may) be doing wrong is going against the wishes of the artist (if they prefer to use another method). It's not clear that e.g lottery is better than finding the true price (or vice versa).

[Androsynth]

Re: Correct Market Pricing

1-This is inherently a class-based argument. It assumes that someone with more money than you isn't a 'real fan' and that his true fans are the squeezed middle class (or whatever class-bracket you happen to be in).

2-The world doesn't owe you anything. Thinking this is unfair because you can't afford tickets to a stand-up comedy show is the epitome of a First-World problem.

edit: this isn't exactly a reply to sambe's comment. I was taking his 'Correct Market Pricing' comment that was addressed at the rebuttals and adding to it.

[joezydeco]

C'mon, let's have a little reality here.

Anyone that has tried to deal with buying tickets (either in today's system or even back in the old days where you had to stand in line) knows that there are people with large sums of cash willing to pay people to stand in line or bombard ticketmaster.com with requests to land tickets for a show they have no intention of seeing. They resell those tickets immediately for a profit to the people that really wanted to see the show. Go look at StubHub.com 30 minutes after a popular rock concert goes on sale. Did every single one of those sellers have a sick grandmother pop up?

No, the world doesn't owe anyone anything, and this isn't a white whine. It's an example of how people with more time and resources than you can jump ahead of you in line and, as a result either deny you an experience or make you pay more out of pocket for it...all in the name of profit.

[larrys]

"more time and resources than you can jump ahead of you in line and, as a result either deny you an experience or make you pay more out of pocket for it."

Isn't that the way the world works? We aren't talking about access to food, education, or healthcare here. We're talking about entertainment. Is there a particular reason why someone with more time or money shouldn't have an edge and be able to spend their money to do something someone with less money can't do?

If you fly enough you also can get upgraded to first class cabin. Is there something not fair about that as well?

[shinratdr]

> Is there a particular reason why someone with more time or money shouldn't have an edge and be able to spend their money to do something someone with less money can't do?

Because the performer wants them to be able to?

[mattgreenrocks]

Scalping is asshole behavior. It is that simple. Don't sugarcoat it in talk of 'smoothing' markets. The scalpers do not add any value to the transaction. They merely inflate the price.

I'm so sick of HN over-intellectualizing topics in order to avoid the difficult discussions of ethics. I'm guessing they're avoided because (gasp) it isn't objective. The horror!

[vacri]

How does being upgraded to the first-class cabin deprive a poorer person of flying?

And no, it's not a blanket statement of the way the world works. There's plenty of things like copyright that prevent a gorilla just coming along and taking your toys for themselves.

[alxp]

Performers now know that they lose good will when a fan has to pay a scalper to see them. Louis C.K. is earning tons of good will by doing this, and the only person who loses out is the scalper. Wealthier fans have always been able to work the system to get extra tickets, back stage access, etc.

[larrys]

"Louis C.K. is earning tons of good will by doing this"

People want to see Louis because he is funny. The minute he stops being funny all that good will won't mean a thing.

[nooneelse]

Your hyperbole ("the minute") isn't aiding in understanding reality. Lots of artists have enough good will built up in their fan-base that they can produce a few bombs and still retain enough fans to reboot their act back to something that the fans like.

[vacri]

And people won't purchase a luxury car if the engine doesn't work. Clearly that means there's no difference between a luxury and regular car, right?

[nooneelse]

How is your second point at all relevant? No one is talking about being owed anything. This situation isn't the consumers pushing against scalpers, it is the performer/artist himself.

You seem to be against Louis C.K. having the freedom to sell his product how and at the price he chooses (for whatever reasons he thinks are of merit). Why?

[sambe]

An odd comment - I didn't say either of these things.

However, other people are saying them and I'm with you - both are fallacies. Particularly on the first, I'd suggest to "real fans" that they consider whether they prefer paying more than face value or not going at all (just in terms of their utility, not as a point of principle). If the latter, then consider the option of refusing the higher price - same result, you don't go! There are no easy solutions.

The perceived issue - I guess - is when a very high percentage of tickets become resold and you don't agree with this method. I'd say your very small chance of getting a face value ticket is still representative of a world without scalpers as they are, as always, acting as a proxy for real demand, which would otherwise be competing with you for face value tickets directly.

[pessimizer]

It is absolutely a class-based argument, and not the fault of scalping, but the class-based argument is a reasonable argument. To the extent that an uneven wealth distribution is based on insider networks, regulatory capture, and rent-seeking, nominal demand is pushed higher than actual utility.

[vacri]

Class-based argument? Your prejudice is showing. The 'true fan' part is about following the goings-on of the performer and being aware that there's a show coming up, and trying to get tickets ASAP instead of two days before the event. Please stop trying to make absolutely everything about money.

[Androsynth]

But if the customers are willing to pay the scalpers price, that means the demand exists.

You say 'flip them for profit' as if thats a bad thing, but as long as people buy those tickets, its just smoothing out the market.

[drivingmenuts]

This is the artist himself saying that he'd rather have true fans in the seats at a reasonable price, rather than have the tickets snapped up by the asshole with the biggest wallet (not sorry for editorializing, that's the politest version of my view of scalpers).

The add-on effect he's looking for is fan retention over time. If 500 people bought from a scalper at some much higher price, there's a small chance that they will become disgruntled and stop being fans. In the long term, he could lose that business.

But if he himself levels out the market, the fans have less to lose. Sure, the artist takes a hit, but that's on him. He can always do something different next time if he's dissatisfied with his revenue.

Remember that this is a guy who made so much money the last time, that he was somewhat nervous. I don't think he's thinking about it the same way you are.

As for "not doing anyone any favors": way I see it, he's doing his fans a favor by keeping the ticket prices affordable.

[Androsynth]

So true fans are poor? What does having a fatter wallet have to do with your taste in comedy?

Also, fans don't work the way you think they do. If I like Louis CK, I like Louis CK. If he chooses to charge $500 for a ticket, I will just watch him on TV. It won't cause me to resent him.

In a perfect market, if enough people feel the same way, the price will drop down into the range that I am comfortable paying. If, on the other hand, he has so many fans that some are willing to pay exorbitant amounts to see him live, I will be forced to watch him on TV.

If he wants to give everyone (rich and poor) the chance to experience his set live, he needs to increase supply by touring more.

[masklinn]

> So true fans are poor?

No? True fans are alone, and true fans are not necessarily the earliest at the gate. If scalpers can grab half the tickets before the show's sold out by buying in bulk, they're going to make a lot of money. Because now they control the product.

> he needs to increase supply by touring more.

He's booked 67 dates, he's only one guy, touring more? He'll need to put his million of sales in cloning if he wants to do that.

But he's at least found a way to keep control on prices and scalping and give everybody equal opportunity.

[philwelch]

> true fans are not necessarily the earliest at the gate

Without scalpers, "first at the gate" is the only way to get tickets.

[adgar]

> true fans are not necessarily the earliest at the gate.

If we're going no true scotsman, I'd say the true fans ARE the earliest at the gate. They're the ones who camp out for weeks.

So really, you're sticking up for the fair-weather fans who can't be bothered to put in the extra effort to get their tickets at face value.

[joezydeco]

I do say it as a bad thing. In my example, the 1000 fans and the artist would have been perfectly happy with the arrangement. Of course this is never the case.

So the scalpers are profiting from the mismatch in supply and demand and making the show less accessible to the fans. From a scalper POV, that's capitalism. God bless America. From the fans's POV, it just sucks.

And I could swap Louis CK for oil, and scalpers for Goldman Sachs, you know. Same thing IMO.

[masklinn]

> From the fans's POV

And the artist's POV as well, his fans are now poorer and there's no value into it: they don't enjoy it more, they don't get more merch, they don't keep their money to see the next show, they don't get to buy a nice dinner for their SO, etc...

[joezydeco]

That's an interesting angle. Internet piracy of content was supposed to be okay because the artist should be able to profit from concerts and related merchandise. But it seems that isn't entirely possible either.

[vacri]

How is that 'smoothing' the market? CK Louis seems to have smoothed it flat with $45 for all tickets.

If the scalpers didn't exist, the eventual ticket-holders would still be able to purchase from the original vendor. It's not like scalpers make tickets magically appear.

[Resident_Geek]

> If the scalpers didn't exist, the eventual ticket-holders would still be able to purchase from the original vendor.

A lot of them wouldn't, though. If the scalpers sell the tickets for, say, $500, then the people willing to pay $500 get tickets pretty reliably. If the scalpers didn't exist, those people would have to take a roll of the dice along with the many, many more people who are willing to pay $45. A lot of them wouldn't be able to see the show.

[vacri]

I didn't mean the same people. The same number of people would see the show, and people generally believe in a first-come-first-served moral system - spend a night in an busy ER department and see how the general public like the idea of 'triage'.

Really, my point is more that those tickets were going to sell anyway, and all the scalpers are doing is reducing the potential audience for those tickets. I don't see how this specific market is 'smoothed' by this practise.

[potch]

If the only factor in your market's efficiency is price charged, then this is true. The real market has other factors like satisfaction/willingness to repeat a transaction (for both sides of the party), opportunities for disruption of your market (exacerbated by said dissatisfaction), and (gasp!) goodwill of parties in a transaction. If you're optimizing just the ledger numbers in your industry, you might make a buck, but you're setting yourself up for hatred and being toppled by a newcomer who customers actually like.

[Androsynth]

Higher prices dont necessarily breed hate in your customers. As long as people see that they are getting what they are paying for, they come out happy. It's the situations where they feel like they are getting screwed, or have too many restrictions, etc. Those generally come about because the market is not efficient, eg ticketmaster.

[AndrewDucker]

Market efficiency is not necessarily a person's aim.

[Androsynth]

Leaving money on the table does no one any favors. If people are willing to pay $150 for tickets and hes charging $50 (or whatever it is), he's only doing himself a disservice.

If people are willing to pay that much and he delivers a show that is up to his normal standard, they won't hate him for charging them that much; quite the opposite actually. It's only the price gauging and poor service of monopolies that people tend to hate (and for good reason).

Now, if you are saying 'what about the people who cant afford $150 for tickets?'. If it's not a charity show, the world definitely does not owe you tickets to a stand-up comedy show. On the other hand, charity shows are fine, but he should call it like it is if thats the case. $50 for tickets means the rich will pay less than theyre willing to pay and the poor won't get in anyways. No one wins in that situation.

[fusiongyro]

> he's only doing himself a disservice.

How precisely is the scalper, by increasing costs and adding _no value_ doing us a service?

[Androsynth]

Just because he is doing himself a disservice doesn't mean the scalpers are doing us a service.

[fusiongyro]

As worded it is implied that the scalper is doing _somebody_ a service, and I disagree with that.

[philwelch]

If they weren't doing anyone a service, they wouldn't make money.

[vacri]

The value that scalpers add is that you can get tickets at a later time. That's about the only value I can see that they provide, and whether that benefit is moral or not I guess depends on whether you believe in first-come-first-served for that item.

[sambe]

They are doing a service to anyone who buys scalped tickets, who is happy to pay extra rather than not go. Competition at this price is lower. I know many people who have happily paid well over face value on several occasions. Of course everyone would rather pay an artificially low price. Wanting a better deal isn't the same as the premium being extortion.

You may not like scalping but there's no point being blinkered about it.

[fusiongyro]

Except they're only paying extra because, ta-da!, the tickets were scalped. The competition is higher at the lower price because, ta-da!, the tickets were scalped.

The arguments for scalping only work if the effects of the scalping are ignored. Eliminating scalpers benefits everyone.

[jarek]

Scalping benefits people who wouldn't have gotten tickets in a non-scalped sale (e.g. because there were twice the amount of people interested at face price than tickets available) and are willing to pay more to get the tickets. Scalpers are exploiting the rigid pricing and release schedules of the tickets.

I don't support scalping but wish the artists and promoters would step up the fight themselves too.

[sambe]

It's not so much an argument "for scalping" as an argument against being emotional and extreme. So, once again, - no, not everyone benefits. Without the higher price tickets available from the scalpers, they would not have been able to go. They got what they wanted at a price they could afford. Disliking something is not the same as it being inherently and totally evil.

[philwelch]

Suppose there are 1000 tickets for a show that are $20 each. There are 5000 people in town who would buy a ticket at that price. Without any scalping, the first 1000 people who show up get a ticket and 4000 people go home unhappy.

With scalping, the first 1000 people who show up still get tickets. 900 of them are scalpers. (So if you were in the first 100, you still got to pay face value.) I'm being very generous with this scenario--I've personally never seen a situation where this was a real problem, as I've gone to every ticketed event I've ever wanted to paying face value.

The 900 scalpers all pick different prices. At $40, there are about 2000 people left in town who want to buy a ticket. Some of them get tickets, but the other scalpers get wise and think, why not charge more? So they charge $50. Or $60. Eventually they reach a point where there are exactly n tickets left, and exactly n people left in town who are willing to buy at that price. If the scalpers overprice the ticket, no one will buy, so they'll need to lower the price again. But generally, what's reached is a fair price that sees all the tickets go to people who actually were willing to buy them at the price they bought them at.

So let's look at what's happened. Without scalping, you have 4000 people who missed out on buying tickets because they weren't first in line and 1000 people going to a show. With scalping, you still have 1000 people going to a show, but instead of all of them being picked on the less-than-perfectly-fair basis of who was first in line (which is a disadvantage to people with more work, more responsibilities, inconveniently timed emergencies, and slow internet connections), some of them are picked based on who was first in line, and some of them are picked based on who was willing to pay more (which is a disadvantage to people with less money).

You might think, well, it's better to be unfair to busy people than to be unfair to poor people. But let's change this thought experiment and say the face value of the tickets was $60 to begin with instead of $20, and at $60, there are exactly 1000 people in town who are willing to buy a ticket. Now there are no scalpers (or if any scalpers do show up, they can only resell the ticket for face value anyway). I would argue that this scenario is strictly less fair than the scenario where the face value was $20 and there was some scalping, because at least in the first scenario, it was possible to get a lower price by getting in line first!

Fundamentally, what difference does it make who's setting the price? You might say, well, if the face value was $60, at least the performer (or the venue, or the ticket vendor) is getting the extra money, not just some "scalper". But the scalper is effectively getting in line for you. He's going out of his way to do the leg work for you. You know who else we pay a premium to for doing the leg work? Shopkeepers. Sure, if we really wanted to, we could go to some warehouse and save some money by buying all our stuff off a pallet. (You still can if you want to--it's called Costco.) But maybe I'd rather some other guy does all that legwork for me, and in exchange, I'll pay more. And if you're running around doing legwork for other people, you are benefitting those people.

[jbooth]

By increasing liquidity!!

[balloot]

What Louis CK is essentially saying is that given a large amount of money already in the bank, it is more valuable for him to have affordable tickets than it is for him to maximize revenue. That is a decision that is perfectly rational. Not everyone gets their full utility from making the absolute maximum amount of money possible.

Also, a side effect of this is that below-market value tickets create a shortage, which in turn makes it valuable to be the first to learn about new tickets. This has to be driving signups to his mailing list and twitter feed.

[vacri]

Leaving money on the table does no one any favors.

God bless the US health system!

$50 for tickets means the rich will pay less than theyre willing to pay and the poor won't get in anyways. No one wins in that situation.

Economists are crazy. A full house is a full house. The people who win are the people who attended. How you can possibly say 'no-one wins' from a full house of successful comedy on the cheap is beyond me. Yeah, bummer, the cheap tickets to a very entertaining night left us all feeling crappy...

[dagw]

First of all, just because there are a number of people willing to pay $150, that doesn't necessarily mean there are enough of them to sell out every show. So now he either has to lower prices as the dates approach or play to half full venues. Both of which are obviously sub-optimal.

Secondly you're ignoring the broader message sent by charging $150. Even if he can find enough people willing to pay that to fill a small venue, it risks sending the wrong message and pissing off people who might otherwise have bought his DVDs, watched his TV shows or gone to other shows. So now instead of being seen as broadly popular "man of the people" who "sticks up for his fans" with wide appeal, he's seen as a stuck up rich fucker entertaining other stuck-up rich fuckers. This will have obviously negative effects on his TV ratings, where I suspect is where he makes most of his money.

[jeffool]

>Leaving money on the table does no one any favors.

Except fans. Who can now buy his DVDs or other swag. (Or afford both his show, and rent.)

If your goal is to get as much money as quickly as possible, there's another word for that. Short-sightedness.

[pyoung]

The SF Giants use a variable ticket pricing scheme that seems to be pretty successful. It adjusts the price of tickets based on projected demand. This probably does a pretty good job at eating into scalpers profits (although not entirely). Of course baseball ticket demand is a lot more predictable due to the fact that their are ~80 home games a season.

It would be interesting to see if there was any way to implement a similar system for concerts and shows.

[joezydeco]

Trent Reznor had some thoughts on that:

"My guess as to what will eventually happen if / when Live Nation and TicketMaster merges is that they'll move to an auction or market-based pricing scheme - which will simply mean it will cost a lot more to get a good seat for a hot show. They will simply BECOME the scalper, eliminating them from the mix."

http://forum.nin.com/bb/read.php?59,548515

[res0nat0r]

I think is partially already in place? Ticketmaster now allows users to resell their tickets via their website: http://www.ticketmaster.com/ticketexchange/

[rmc]

Also, is scalping a bad thing? It seems to me that they are making the market more efficient.

It might make the market more effecient. But it annoys your customers.