Prisoners of our passion

Hi everyone, it’s Sarah in Hong Kong. Like other Taylor Swift fans, I’ve become intimately familiar with virtual queues. But first… Three th [View in browser]( [Bloomberg]( Hi everyone, it’s Sarah in Hong Kong. Like other Taylor Swift fans, I’ve become intimately familiar with virtual queues. But first… Three things you need to know today: • Threads [hit 100 million users]( just days after launch • EU sealed a new [transatlantic data-transfer pact]( with the US • A cyberattack forced Ukraine to [postpone its June inflation release]( Cruel summer After three years of the pandemic and a drip, drip of bad news, I suspect many of us are willing to go the extra mile to see our favorite musicians in person. Taylor Swift’s Eras tour is testament to that: She’s expected to make music history (again) by shattering the $1 billion threshold for ticket sales and delivering the highest-grossing tour ever. The bad news? Those seeking the coveted tickets are captives of one of the internet’s most unpleasant rituals. The online ticketing process is an international mess. If you thought the competition for tickets was fierce in the US, try to see a show in Asia. The continent has hundreds of millions of Swift fans and only a handful of stops on the Eras tour. Hong Kong, despite its claims in years past to being “Asia’s world city,” wasn’t among them. That means everyone needs to compete for the shows in Tokyo next February or in Singapore next March or venture farther afield to Australia, France or the UK to get their Swift fix. Few artists have the same gravitational pull. A single Instagram post from Swift [reportedly caused]( US voter registration to spike. Her fans overwhelmed Ticketmaster’s systems in an incident last year that helped push its parent company, Live Nation Entertainment Inc., to face the music in front of the US Judiciary Committee’s antitrust panel. Just like in the US, most fans in Singapore had to turn to Ticketmaster as the only viable online platform. The other options were to sign up for United Overseas Bank Ltd.’s credit or debit cards to get an exclusive ticket pre-sale or wait for hours at branches of Singapore Post, according to local media. But that still left thousands disappointed, including a friend and fellow Swift fan in Beijing, who gave up after sitting in a queue behind tens of thousands of others. I had to join a lottery for one of Swift’s four shows in Tokyo, which could only be done on a platform run by the convenience store operator Lawson Inc. Winners will need to secure the tickets on a smartphone app from Avex Entertainment Inc. With few alternative platforms, fans from this part of the world are well-acquainted with scalpers. The resale business is especially strong in China. Earlier this year, tickets to a Beijing show to see the Taiwanese band Mayday sold out online in five seconds, according to Chinese state media outlets. If all other plans fail, a friend in the UK offered to join the lottery there on my behalf. Look what you made me do, Ticketmaster. —[Sarah Zheng](mailto:szheng244@bloomberg.net) The big story Among the lawyers, litigants and spectators who packed into a San Francisco courtroom last month for a hearing on the fate of the biggest video gaming deal ever was another breed altogether: [the merger arbitrager](. One to watch [Watch the Bloomberg Technology TV interview]( with Punit Soni, the founder of Suki AI. Get fully charged Social media platforms didn’t adequately [moderate harmful content during recent riots]( in France, European Commissioner Thierry Breton said. Amazon’s Prime Day shows that e-commerce isn’t the driver it once was for the stock, as [investor focus shifts]( to the company’s faster-growing and profitable cloud-computing unit. Personal data on about 11 million patients of HCA Healthcare was [exposed in an online forum](. TSMC reported better-than-expected sales on a boom in AI applications demanding more of the company’s [chipmaking capacity](. More from Bloomberg Get Bloomberg Tech newsletters in your inbox: - [Cyber Bulletin]( for coverage of the shadow world of hackers and cyber-espionage - [Game On]( for reporting on the video game business - [Power On]( for Apple scoops, consumer tech news and more - [Screentime]( for a front-row seat to the collision of Hollywood and Silicon Valley - [Soundbite]( for reporting on podcasting, the music industry and audio trends - [Hyperdrive]( for expert insight into the future of cars Follow Us Like getting this newsletter? [Subscribe to Bloomberg.com]( for unlimited access to trusted, data-driven journalism and subscriber-only insights. Want to sponsor this newsletter? [Get in touch here](. You received this message because you are subscribed to Bloomberg's Tech Daily newsletter. If a friend forwarded you this message, [sign up here]( to get it in your inbox. [Unsubscribe]( [Bloomberg.com]( [Contact Us]( Bloomberg L.P. 731 Lexington Avenue, New York, NY 10022 [Ads Powered By Liveintent]( [Ad Choices](