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.
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.
(Your first paragraph remains valid of course.)