I agree TF and Pearl Jam have been pretty hypocritical in some of their behavior, in a number of ways. You can see it in Ten Club, merch & ticket sales, and sometimes just the things Eddie says. It's OK though, they're the ####### best, and they have every right to do business, I just can't get pulled into it myself. But they've given a lot back as well. In any case, I'm pretty happy just with the albums and the boots.
And I am really jealous BTW of your collection. Someday though, your grandchildren are gonna find all these tubes of posters, and be like "Wow, Grandpa really liked jelly."
FWIW I have been pissed at this whole situation for 20 years or so. This is the first concert in a large venue with a big name that I have bought tickets for in over 20 years. My live music tends to be small venues and the bands I see are usually up and coming or had their hey day long ago. Pearl Jam is the one band I made the exception for. It truly was not a good experience buying these tickets. The only way it would have been worse is if I went through all the bs and did not get tickets. I am VERY happy I am getting to see them but I am not sure I would go through it again. Having said that when the lights go down I suspect I will quickly forget about the ticket buying experience.
Ticket scalping's at an all time high I think now, and yeah I am the same way prosopis, mostly small shows for me. Large show exception maybe every other year. Rush, Muse with the kids. Pearl Jam cornholes too, but it never seemed like this big a hassle to get Pearl Jam tickets before.
My gf won box seats to Robert Plant at Wolf Trap, which we saw last week... now THAT was worth it.