Dynamic Pricing Is Kind Of Annoying

I just went to The Weeknd concert and it was the best concert I’ve ever been to, but I’m still annoyed about what I paid to get in.

The price I saw when tickets first went up was not the price I saw ten minutes later, and that’s dynamic pricing. Ticketmaster raises the cost in real time when a lot of people are trying to buy at once, so the more you want it, the more it costs. Demand spikes, the algorithm reacts, and you’re left staring at a number that jumped while you were still deciding.

They say it’s just supply and demand. Fair, but it feels different when the “market” is a countdown timer and a queue of thousands of people refreshing the same page.

Is it illegal? No. Is it annoying? Yes, and regulators in a few places have started asking if fans should at least see the full price upfront before they’re stuck in checkout.

I’d still pay again, which is probably exactly what they’re counting on.