Tech scalpers: attacks and defenses

 

     Once upon a time, scalpers were just folks who went to a ticket agency, possibly having waited in line (or paid someone else to wait for them), got as many tickets to the event (sports, concert, ...) as possible and then stood outside the event location trying to sell them for as much as the market would bear. An event that was not sold out would probably only get back the ticket price (or less). But an event that was sold out and very popular -- who knows the price that one could get. It was usually considered to be illegal but very difficult to enforce.

     In current days, although "old-style" scalpers still exist, the tech scalpers have largely taken their place. Online purchases/access means online scalpers. Events for scalping exist in the same venue as brick-and-board. Tickets or products become available for sale at a specific, predetermined, time and place. OR tickets or products will become available at an unspecified time -- "hit and miss".

     For the tech scalper, these events are met by automation -- or "bots". A bot will "hang around" for the appropriate time, or will do frequent snapshots of web pages to compare in order to find out when something is now available, and pounce. A human at a keyboard can do the same thing (or can make use of some of the same apps that tech scalpers use) but not nearly as promptly. And a human must be around when the event occurs -- the bots can be set up to do everything without further intervention by humans.

     In attempts to make purchases, and access, fair -- limits are often imposed. "Only ten tickets per purchaser." Or, "only four widgets per session". For a human, that is successful. For a tech scalper, that just means that they need to clone and multiply. Limits per session? Have massive numbers of multiple sessions. Limits per purchaser? Have multiple accounts.

     The purchaser, or tech scalper, has noticed the event and gotten in-line. The goal now is to determine the item to be purchased and check out as quickly as possible.

     We have reached the point where different types of events have different requirements. In order to purchase a ticket, a choice of seat/ticket must be done. For speed, the "best seat available" option is usually open but not always. For a scarce item now available, there is usually only one choice.

     The amount of time between noticing something is available and choosing it is the first critical amount of time and the tech scalper has the advantage. After choosing the item, there are two ways the seller can handle it. They can take the item out of inventory or they can just keep allowing items to be chosen as long as there are still items available that have not been purchased.

     If the seller takes something out of inventory upon choosing, they run the risk of having it "tied up" and not available for sale to anyone else -- and the first person may choose to not do the final purchase. For sellers who choose this option, there is usually a specific time counter for the purchaser to complete the purchase before the item is released back to inventory. The time limit is not always explicit.

     For sellers who leave it in inventory, the seller has the advantage that it is likely that, for popular items, all the items will be sold. The buyers, however, are in the situation where 500 items may be chosen 5000 times and the first 500 to finish the task of purchasing are the winners.

     In this situation, the tech scalpers are the ultimate winners. Although a few of the humans might get a ticket or item, most of the purchases by the tech scalpers will succeed. Humans have possible opportunities only when there are more items than scalping "units" (number of active scalping programs times number of purchases possible per program). Without automation, humans cannot beat the tech scalpers if the scalping units exceed the number of items available except with the very best of luck.

     Humans can improve their odds by being as ready as possible when the item becomes available by having to ONLY choose and buy. Even there, the human is at a disadvantage because of bandwidth limitations in which the tech scalper is likely to have a high-speed connection.

     In my opinion, for scarce items, sellers should always do the time-out method and pull it out of inventory when chosen. Any other choice gives the "game" to the tech scalpers.

Labels and marketing: what's in a name?

     This blog is about marketing -- and marketing is about politics (and politics is about marketing). Most people think of politics as about politicians and other elected officials. Most people think of marketing as being for/against commercial products and other types of physical objects that can be transferred. Yet, we talk about marketing a candidate and politics are basically a matter of forming/creating, and expressing, views on various subjects. They are inseparable.

     So, this is a warning. If you don't want to read a blog about politics then don't read this blog. Some examples will be about commercial products and other examples will be about current events and, admittedly subjective, aspects of current society.

     Sometimes marketing is used as a short term for marketing media which is about HOW the marketing materials are distributed -- television, pamphlets, advertising within other social media (movies, plays, ...), and so forth. This is different from the marketing content and I won't be talking about marketing media (at least, not in this blog). Marketing is also closely related to sales -- and I won't be talking directly about sales. This blog is about marketing and labels -- the words that contain the concepts that you want to have others absorb.

     As mentioned above, marketing is basically a matter of creating/forming views on various subjects. The person, or group, that is doing the marketing will have an object view -- what she, or he, wants you to have as the final thought about the item being marketed. Candidate X is the best. Product Y makes your clothes cleaner. Legislation G will make you safer.

     The following bullet items are concerned with categories of methods used to make labels more effective -- more likely to achieve the desires of the people creating the labels. It is meant to include the more important methods but certainly will not contain all of them. Please note that, although examples are taken from the U.S, examples abound from around the world -- in my research, I have found items from Canada, France, the U.K., and Germany.

• Obfuscation -- this is a $20 word for making things less clear. Clarity is sometimes desired within marketing and, at other times, it is strongly not desired. In general, if there is one side then there is the opposite. Gas-conserving versus gas-guzzling. But "gas-guzzling" isn't appealing so that might get ignored and "powerful" would be used instead.
  
  For a controversial social/religious area, the sides should be "pro-choice" versus "anti-choice" or "anti-life" versus "pro-life". But, even though it is accurate, "anti-choice" isn't something that is marketable. The people opposing the "pro-life" people are strongly supportive of all phases of life, including the post-birth lives of the woman and fully-developed child -- so "anti-life" is not at all accurate.
  
  In most cases, obfuscation can only occur when the media allow it to happen. Many times, the media will actually assign the labels and they often do so based on "catchiness" rather than attempted accuracy.
• Conciseness versus Self-explanatory and perspective. Shorter descriptions are more easily remembered. "Jingles" are short phrases that are easy to remember (and, often, sung) and get associated with a product. Hashtags are now used to give a short, compact, indication of the subject matter. A difference of perspective can mean that a concise term does not have sufficient information to be self-explanatory.
  
  The term #BlackLivesMatter was created based on the reality that, currently, the lives of black people, poor people, Hispanic people, and First Nation ("Indian", Native, indigenous, ...) people do not matter very much to the U.S. justice system. Their deaths are under-investigated and legal matters are not treated with equal importance. They are also profiled and subjected to laws that are directed specifically towards their communities. They are over-represented in the for-profit prison system.
  
  (What do for-profit systems try to do? Increase demand -- which, in this case, means to increase the numbers of people imprisoned and it is much easier to do that with less-powerful segments of the population.)
  
  People who are not in these groups assume that the groups of people are treated in a similar way to the way that they are treated -- thus they respond that #AllLivesMatter which, unfortunately, is not accurate. It is true that #AllLivesSHOULDMatter. If the original hashtag had been #BlackLivesAlsoMatter would that have headed off some of the arguments? A concise label may be accurate but, without appropriate history and perception, may not be sufficiently clear.
• Inferences -- drawing on history and associations. The Patriot Act (and the Patriot missile) have no direct connection to anything "patriotic". By associating the name to the legislation and product, the associations that people have with the word can be connected, in people's thoughts, to the product. Local company names that have their local city, or neighborhood, as part of their name tend to attract more business.
• Avoidance of "hot words" by redirection. Some words are associated with negative things by the majority of a population. In the U.S., such hot words include "socialism" and "welfare". So, if you are going to promote a new taxpayer-funded airport, you do NOT use the word "socialism" (which it is) -- instead you use the less direct "subsidized". If a new factory needs special utility lines (electricity) and water lines that are taxpayer-funded, they are "expanding infrastructure" even if it is specifically for use by the company which does not pay for it. "Welfare" is a bad word when used for helping individuals -- so the word is not used when corporations are subsidized.
• Newspeak -- the way of using language for redirecting thoughts. This is closely related to obfuscation but is more deliberate. Newspeak was described in the book 1984 by George Orwell. A more complete list can be found in the Wikipedia article at https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_Newspeak_words.
  
  "Right to Work" laws actually reduce the wages, and freedom, to work for a living. The phrase "Anti-Union" is much more accurate but not as easily sold. The "Internet Freedom" act moves the control of the Internet to large corporations -- thus actually reducing the freedoms of the consumers.
  
  Much of the transfer of wealth from the 99% to the 1% has been done under Newspeak titled Legislation labels. Who has time to read a 2,000 page bill when the extremely inaccurate and misleading title "Help out the Middle Class Act" (not the actual name of a bill, as far as I know) says it all?
  
  Newspeak also deals with the re-writing of history. Don't like what actually happened 50 years ago? Change the history books to indicate something different. Does a book written 100 years ago use language that is no longer acceptable? Rewrite the book to be currently acceptable. This is related to labeling as it is possible, with effective marketing, to change the current meaning of a word. For example, the word "gay" is no longer used in the U.S. to indicate happy and joyous. The label has changed because the underlying meaning has been diverted.
• Irrelevant but popular associations. A carbonated beverage (soda, pop, soda pop, sparkling drink -- regional names) can be marketed as "gluten-free". Carbonated beverages almost never have gluten but, since many people now consider gluten to be bad, a marketing method can include saying what "bad" things are NOT included. "This soda is gluten-free, cyanide-free, lead-free, and contains all the vitamins that start with the letter B".

     Labels are a way of marketing products and ideas. As an aspect of language, they make use of -- and form -- the ways that we think about those subjects. If we are aware of what we are doing when we create labels, they can be more effective -- and, if we are aware of what others are doing when they create labels, we can make it less easy to be misled.

    Are you aware of other methods that labels can be used, or misused, within the world in which you live? How much do labels affect the way you think about things?