Op suggested regulation. I.e. making certain practices illegal. You responded:

> they run a racket that would be illegal there to begin with.

Perhaps making it illegal in nyc as well, as op suggested, is the solution? Rather than letting a tech company replace the scalpers with a scalping monopoly

And how realistic, exactly, do you think getting regulation pushed through in NYC is, exactly? Unless there is true citizen outrage (and there will never be, given what market we're talking about), you're going to need lobbied buy-in from currently sitting politicians and their successors. So if you're lucky, maybe you'll get something tentative in 2040.

In the mean time: software can solve this problem now. Now sounds good.

> software can solve this problem now.

Software can displace a middle man, and replace it with a monopoly. Once monopoly power is in place, Software will then become more and more expensive until it is as bad or worse than what it supplanted. Investors will get rich, there will be a brief bubble where some people will get a VC-funded good deal, and then nobody else wins.

You're going to have to work a lot harder to argue the connection between the first and second part of that first sentence, because one does not lead to the other. You might be right --I don't think you are, but you might be-- but right now that sentence means nothing, and that fully undermines whatever point you're trying to argue.

VCs don't invest in a product that won't pay dividends. Of course they'll drive prices up once they've monopolised the market.

Are you saying that you don't think startups seek to displace middle men and create monopolies? or are you saying companies with monopolies don't exploit those to overcharge people as much as possible?

Because neither of those statements is exactly controversial.

What I think, and what you think, is irrelevant. Back up your claims, or they're just you trying to convince yourself you know something you don't.

Cutting out the middle man does not by definition lead to monopolies, especially not when the market has tens of thousands of sellers (if not orders of magnitude more), and tens of thousands of buyers (or, renters, in this case. And again, if not orders of magnitudes more).

It’s not cutting out the middle man - it’s replacing the middle man with a software middle man. The only way that doesn’t lead to a monopoly is if there are multiple software middle men competing. Like, do you actually believe that uber is just a platform connecting buyers (riders) with sellers (drivers)? It’s a taxi company. It replaced a dozen taxi companies in each city with a monopoly or an duopoly (when lyft is also present).

do you think NYC making a law or regulation is going to lead to less corruption? This is NYC we are talking about after all.

maybe we can find a software solution to the selective enforcement problem.

;)