The only things I’m sure of are that A. consumers would benefit if there was an actual market and B. It is hard to imagine one happening without government intervention.
I think that's where the "reputation laundering" angle comes into play. With its unique position, Ticketmaster gives artists plausible deniability. "Nothing we can do about it", "evils of capitalism", "a monopolist captured the market, government doing nothing", etc. - say artists, for whom the image they project is a core part of their market value. With a properly functioning competitive market, those same artists would have to either get much less, or answer some inconvenient question about ticket pricing.
It’s a monopsony.
The only real winners are Ticketmaster live nation
I think that's a critical difference, because if the current situation is actually a big reputation laundering scam by artists, there's not much we can do about it without regulation. If it's not, if in fact most artists are as unhappy about the situation as their fans, there's quite a lot they can do about it and should be encouraged to do so even if it makes getting a ticket significantly harder (e.g. showing ID for purchased tickets at the venue and only allowing 1:1 refunds, not resales of tickets).
Of course, if producers are receiving a significant portion of earnings on resales, some of that does "trickle down" to artists in the form of higher performing fees on the basis of anticipated resales. But that's a small fraction of added value for most artists, and it's coming at a level of indirection that means ticket sellers are incentivized to raise fees to their highest possible levels after artists get paid, because that's pure profit for them. I think it's entirely reasonable to believe that artists aren't happy about this payment structure, even if they do see slightly higher show income as a result, and want a range of fans to be able to attend their shows.