Ticketmaster is ditching those hard-to-read letters and numbers, called captchas, that users must decipher to make a purchase. It’s switching to images, which are easier, faster and more secure.
http://www.marketplace.org/topics/business/captcha-22-when-online-security-hurts-sales
Our guest on the show today is Jason Scott, computer historian and adjunct archivist at the Internet Archives, a nonprofit founded in 1996 to save a copy of every Web page ever posted. He’s also responsible for the Netscape GIF graveyard you see above. Also related: ‘under construction’ GIFs! Read this blog post by Justin Yu on The 404 Podcast.
http://www.npr.org/blogs/money/2009/09/podcast_the_economics_of_ticke.html
A listener wants to know why Ticketmaster charges a convenience fee if you want to print out the tickets you buy online. After all, it’s your ink and paper, and you’re not asking Ticketmaster to mail your purchase.
Economist Emily Oster of the Chicago Booth School of Business has been decoding the universe for us, and she’s got an answer for you. It’s got to do with the network effect, locking up a market and — of course — supply and demand.
Tagged with economics ticketmaster monopoly