Hi David,

I didn't see your original email, but I did see the response and your followup.

There are significant differences between ticket scalping and domaining, mainly arising from the finite number of seats and hard expiry dates that make unused event tickets worthless once the event is over. However IMO the two share a fundamental characteristic broadly known in economics as "rent seeking": wealth obtained through manipulative use of resources without any associated increase in productivity.

Being in a queue early to buy a ticket/domain (without intent to use it) inflates the price without adding any value. I am fascinated by speculators who claim what they're doing is innovation, and even more by those who peddle themselves as branding experts to try to give some veneer of added value. Nobody is fooled by this. Nor does anyone shed any tears when the primary sellers (ie, Ticketmaster/Godaddy) see the greed and then seek to compete with them. The losers are the end-users in both cases.

Cheers,