That’s why we need to show up with a bunch of Ticketmaster boycotters. Every successful social movement needs a carrot and a stick.

How do they propose to prevent it? They can’t stop me from starting a band, they can’t stop you from having me play at your house. Exclusivity agreements don’t work on the fundamentally disagreeable.

I will aid and abet time crime.

That seems much easier to pull off while also building a replacement infrastructure for ticketing and performances. The hypothetical more profitable option of not dealing with Ticketmaster needs to be manually built out: firms and practices don’t just manifest themselves as spontaneous crystallization of pure potential profitability.

There are no worse kinds of artists. If you make art, you are an artist. Congratulations.

But the purchasers of tickets aren’t the people who pick the ticketing service. If we want tickets to be available from other services we need to actually get shows organized that sell tickets through them, not just not pay Ticketmaster.

What bands do you know? Do they want to come to your town?