Comment by chongli
12 hours ago
Ticketmaster is a reputation management company. Their true purpose is to take the reputation hit for charging market value for limited availability event tickets. Artists do not want to take this reputation hit themselves because it impacts their brand too much.
Which is why it's quite appropriate for their reputation to be absolute shit and for members of the public to make sure the stink spreads to anyone who chooses to do business with them as a disincentive to doing it.
Ticketmaster is owned by Live Nation which owns at least 338 major concert venues [1]. Their market power in the venue business allows them to force artists to use Ticketmaster for ticket sales. The artists don't mind though, as they can tell their fans they have no other choice but to use Ticketmaster. Ticketmaster absorbs all of the reputational stink and the artists likely earn more money than they otherwise would have if they were forced to sell tickets at the low prices their fans want.
[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Live_Nation_Entertainment