How Google is ripping off music fans around the world

Google’s ex-CEO Eric Schmidt emphasised in his book that doing no evil to customer is paramount to the company’s decision making.

There is even a Wikipedia article about this motto of Google’s, it used to read “Don’t be evil” but has since been amended to “Do the right thing”. According to the book, even if there is a great opportunity to make some money, Google management would bail on it if it makes experiences worse for users, profits are less important than contribution to humanity.

But is that so in reality?

There is this famous evil company called Viagogo (to give you some perspective, they have an average rating of 1 star based on 1700+ reviews on ProductReview) that exists and thrives thanks to Google.

The Australian government among other countries are trying to take Viagogo to the court, and there are countless consumer-initiated anti-Viagogo movements too.

So what do Viagogo do and how does Google help them?

Viagogo uses Google AdWords to reach millions of people worldwide who want to attend a concert. Type any significant artist into your Google search and you will receive something like this:

Viagogo is always positioned as #1 due to placing the highest bid with Google— even before the official ticket platform that is number #3 in this screenshot. If you aren’t a savvy online ticket buyer and you haven’t heard of Viagogo, chances are you will click on this first link. And when you do, it’s a proper online casino-style experience:

They make you believe there are more people trying to buy the same tickets and they make you wait for 30+ seconds just to make you nervous. Try this for any event on Viagogo — they all will have the same screen. Everything is in high demand on Viagogo, amazing!

Now that you have waited half a minute or minute and realised the tickets are selling out fast, you are more likely to buy a ticket at inflated price, FOMO at its best.

I can’t vouch for all Viagogo tickets, but I know that at least some of them are real and come from real users who couldn’t attend the concert. But because it’s completely non-transparent, if you list your ticket for $50 you will never find out how much Viagogo charged the buyer. It could have been $200 or $300. And because Viagogo charges margins of 200% and up they can afford higher bids in Google AdWords. This is a luxury not even the official ticket seller can afford. No honest platform will ever be able to compete with them, because no honest platform would ever charge a 200% margin.

Numerous consumers and promoters have complained to Google, and they even promised to take action but the only change that happened is that Viagogo can not longer use the word “official” in the ad, like it matters for a #1 ad anyway?

So getting back to the strong title of this post — why is Google ripping music fans off, if it’s clearly Viagogo?

Well, Viagogo clearly has no reputation and arguably their only way to survival is AdWords — trick consumers into believing that Viagogo is official or semi-official source of tickets. Block their AdWords and the company goes down.

Why won’t Google do it after years and years of complaints, after hundreds of public outcries? Because they pay well. And apparently “don’t do evil” doesn’t come into play anymore. Okay, it’s capitalism, everybody has to make money, blah-blah-blah. But where does the money come from?

Viagogo pays Google from their 200%+ price markups and this money come from you — from ticket buyers.

So every time you pay a few extra hundred of dollars for a ticket on Viagogo, know that part of that sweet profit goes to Google because Google and Viagogo are accomplices in this scam. They rip you off together.