I think one reason why artists don't take the Dutch Auction approach is that they want to recruit new fans, including kids who might not have much money. They also probably don't want to be seen as greedy.
In the absence of some system that prevents resale, scalpers will likely still buy up all of the Taylor Swift tickets before they drop to a price that is affordable for these less-affluent fans.
The bots will likely still win if they can determine how many tickets are left and how fast they are selling.
The scalper can only make profit if he can buy the ticket at one price, and later sell it not just at a higher price, but a price sufficiently higher to cover the costs of the process (advertising, bot development, customer support, transaction fees, ...), and the profit needs to be worth both the effort and the risk.
In this model, anyone willing to pay more than the scalper paid already had the opportunity to buy at the higher price, so the only people the scalper could sell to would be people who really want to go, are willing to pay a high price, but weren't organized enough to actually buy when the ticket was being sold at that price.
That will almost certainly limit the profit so much that it isn't worth it at all, and even if it doesn't, anyone who plans ahead will be able to get the ticket directly from the system.
In the end, it's an auction system. Which auction system is chosen doesn't matter much economically. You could get similar results by having people bid on the available tickets. But psychologically, that will alienate fans more than a system like this. This only works for shows that will definitely sell out though, because otherwise it creates an incentive to wait for a lower price, deterring people from buying.
Yeah, people forget scalpers also have downside. When I lived in a big city my partner and I would routinely go to sporting events by paying under face value on the tickets simply by waiting for the event to start. Of course, we had to be ok if it didn't work out, but most of the time it did. Worst case, we walk back across the street and watch the game from the bar.
I don't see why the Dutch auction doesn't address your concerns. The starting price can be higher, the price drop can be non-linear and third party software using the concert's API can serve customers by providing them with the same information scalpers would have.
If the kids didn't buy at the time, that means they didn't buy them before when the tickets were more expensive. Which means that also wouldn't be interested in buying the more expensive scalped tickets either.
Put into context:
Tickets are $30 - kid doesn't buy them
next day Tickets are $29 - scaler buys them before the kid
The kid has already decided that $30 is too much. For the resale to be worth it, it would need to be more than $1 gains, but that is more than the kid has already associated the value to be
What if the kid passes at $30 because money is tight, they’d prefer to pay $20 and want to try for that, but scalpers snatch up all the cheapest tickets before the kid is able to. The kid still really wants to go, however, and is willing to actually pay the scalper up to $40 when push comes to shove, even if it hurts a bit?
Or if they weren’t organized enough or able to commit to going early on, but still have the purchasing power to pay a higher price?
I was mostly asking because the explanation in the parent comment seemed overly simplistic, and to indicate that this approach would destroy the scalpers’ business model entirely. I’m totally open to the idea that this is a good solution that would improve on the status quo.
In the absence of some system that prevents resale, scalpers will likely still buy up all of the Taylor Swift tickets before they drop to a price that is affordable for these less-affluent fans.
The bots will likely still win if they can determine how many tickets are left and how fast they are selling.