Absolutely. Between Ticketmaster and LiveNation, almost every performing venue in the United States is completely dominated.
We desperately, desperately need legitimate anti-trust actions in the United States; we need something that will reintroduce some actual competition into the market.
The first failure of the federal government that led to this path was in the 1990s and the Microsoft Antitrust Trials. That was the point at which there really could have been another way–but the billionaires, at that point, had all the inroads to government that the Reagan Administration made possible. Because Microsoft could buy politicians, the vast majority of people on the planet have never used any operating system other than Windows, and the Microsoft company gets billions upon billions of dollars from state/federal/municipal contracts.
Google and Apple, then, just followed the path that Microsoft bought and paved through government regulations. And that made it easy for other billion dollar companies like Ticketmaster and LiveNation to do the same thing in other realms–simply buy the laws, buy the politicians, buy the system that’s supposed to regulate them, and then use that system to remove all competition.
Absolutely. Between Ticketmaster and LiveNation, almost every performing venue in the United States is completely dominated.
We desperately, desperately need legitimate anti-trust actions in the United States; we need something that will reintroduce some actual competition into the market.
The first failure of the federal government that led to this path was in the 1990s and the Microsoft Antitrust Trials. That was the point at which there really could have been another way–but the billionaires, at that point, had all the inroads to government that the Reagan Administration made possible. Because Microsoft could buy politicians, the vast majority of people on the planet have never used any operating system other than Windows, and the Microsoft company gets billions upon billions of dollars from state/federal/municipal contracts.
Google and Apple, then, just followed the path that Microsoft bought and paved through government regulations. And that made it easy for other billion dollar companies like Ticketmaster and LiveNation to do the same thing in other realms–simply buy the laws, buy the politicians, buy the system that’s supposed to regulate them, and then use that system to remove all competition.