On the Disgust I Feel Towards the TicketMaster App

2019-10-02

Last week, I had the pleasure of seeing various members of the [McElroy
family](https://www.themcelroy.family) perform live versions of a subset of
their podcasts. The shows were fun, and they made coming back into the city at
night after working all day more than worth the trouble.

There was, however, one part of the experience that I didn't enjoy at all. You
see, dear reader, the McElroys elected to ticket these events using
[TicketMaster](https://www.ticketmaster.com), which seems to be a sort of
ticketing as a service (TAAS?) platform. I imagine the boys felt it best to
separate themselves from the ticketing process and leave it to the
professionals, no doubt for some fee assessed per ticket sold. That they
decided to outsource this part of their tour doesn't bother me at all; I'm sure
it allowed them to focus on their art and make the shows that much more
delightful. What bothered me was the TicketMaster platform itself.

These events were mobile entry only, which means that the only way to get in is
to present the QR code (or boxcode, as I like to call them) at the door for
scanning. That's fine with me. The problem is that the only way that I could
find to get those QR codes is to download and log into the [TicketMaster
app](https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=com.ticketmaster.tickets.international&hl=en_US).
While somewhat annoying and clearly a ploy to sell me more stuff, I was willing
to look past this as an unfortunate consequence of the system we live in, if
that had been the end of it.

About a week before the event, I decided to get it over with and download the
app to my device. I have a [OnePlus
One](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/OnePlus_One), an admittedly old smartphone
from those tablet-chiseling days of late 2014, and at the time it was running
the final public release of
[CyanogenMod](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/CyanogenMod), a flavor of Android
6. I'll further admit here that my phone was far behind the current version of
Android, and I'll take some blame for what happened next. Upon searching for
TicketMaster in the Google Play Store, I was unable to find it in the results.
It was clear to me what was happening: TicketMaster doesn't run on Android
6.[^1]

At this point, I could have tried sideloading TicketMaster onto my device, but
to be honest I didn't think of that. Instead, I decided to do something I'd
been meaning to do for a while: upgrade. [LineageOS](https://www.lineageos.org)
had caught my eye some time ago, and since my device is supported, I thought
I'd give it a shot. It proved to be pretty easy to set up, and as of writing I
have a fully-updated OnePlus One running Android 9.

During setup for LineageOS, I decided to skip installing Google apps, such as
the Play Store, Gmail, Maps, and others. I had read that there was some
inconclusive evidence about battery drain attributable to these apps, but I was
more motivated simply by my long-term goal of reaching [Google Escape
Velocity]({{site.url}}{{site.baseurl}}/2019/09/30/trying-to-reach-google-escape-velocity.html).
Incidentally, the resulting phone has been much better behaved, and at the
moment I only really have to charge it every other day or so.

So there I was, old phone with new OS in hand. It was time to install
TicketMaster and try this whole thing again so I could go see those good good
McElroys on stage. I downloaded the APK and ran `adb install` to push it
across. `Success`, it said. Okay, time to launch and---

It crashed.

Hmm, weird, I guess I'll launch it aga---

It crashed.

Cool, I thought. Why?

I ran `adb logcat` and tried a third time. I don't have the error in front of
my, but it basically said that TicketMaster couldn't find the Play Store, so it
couldn't or wouldn't launch. I sat back in my chair. For some reason,
TicketMaster *really* wanted me to have the Play Store installed. I searched
around, and there wasn't really any discussion on the Internet about this
problem or how to solve it. I was stuck.

The unsatisfying conclusion is that I had my girlfriend download the app to her
phone, log in, and handle the tickets. I wasn't able to find a better solution
than that. We were able to see the shows, and everything was alright. Maybe I
shouldn't complain.

But I will. What bothers me is that TicketMaster made a lot of assumptions in
designing their system. First, they assumed that everyone has a smartphone of
their own or access to one. That's probably mostly true, especially among the
sort of crowd that the McElroys draw. Plus, I'm sure the McElroys decided to
make the tickets mobile-only, so that part is on them. Whatever.

The other assumption TicketMaster made was that I'm willing to give them part
of my identity and some free space and resources on my phone---plus the actual
monetary fee for the tickets---in order to see the shows I wanted to see. As it
turns out, they were mostly correct in assuming that, since I did it after all,
but it sure did turn me off to the whole platform. I can't say I'll seek out
shows through the platform, and I'll probably only use it when I'm forced to
again in the future.

Now, for TicketMaster, that's probably not a big deal. They still got their
money, and if I didn't turn into a whale for their platform, they probably
don't care. Most of their customers probably only use the platform once anyway.
My contribution (or lack thereof) is less than a rounding error on their bottom
line. My high-minded I'll-take-my-business-elsewhere approach is almost
completely useless against their behemoth corporate bulk. And the story is the
same for lots of companies that present convenience in exchange for privacy.

Sure, it wouldn't have been that hard to give in, install the Play Store, and
do this the "right" way, but it makes me sad to think that there could be such
little freedom in something as simple as buying and presenting a ticket to see
a show. The complete lack of respect for even the possibility of anonymity is
frustrating, to say the least.

I'd like to live in a world where it's possible to achieve my goals---in this
case, seeing a bunch of older-than-me dudes [play
D&D](https://maximumfun.org/shows/adventure-zone) and [give fake advice over
wine](https://maximumfun.org/shows/my-brother-my-brother-and-me)---without
letting a corporation, or really anyone, into my life. Sure, I could have just
not gone to the show, but I'm one of these greedy fellows who wants it both
ways. I suppose I could have been more proactive and paid TicketMaster to ship
me paper tickets (although its not clear if those would have been effective at
the door, given the mobile-only policy), but should I really have to pay *more*
money to escape TicketMaster's malware?

Think of it this way: if I can pay, whatever, $16.50 to have TicketMaster Fedex
me some paper tickets, doesn't that mean that they value having access to their
clients' phones about that much? What does that say about their motivations?

Anyway, the shows were great, and the tickets were worth the money. Just spare
me the corporate slime.

[^1]: According to [this
page](https://apkpure.com/ticketmaster%EF%BC%8Dbuy-sell-tickets-to-concerts-sports/com.ticketmaster.mobile.android.na),
TicketMaster runs on Android 5 and up, but I suspect that that's just what it
*could* run on if sideloaded onto a device. That it was missing from the Play
Store indicated to me that some filter had been applied on TickeMaster's end to
prevent installation on my older device. In general, I'm neutral on this
practice, since at some point it's untenable for developers to support devices
from the ancient past. As always, I'm willing to be wrong about any of this.