there was a time in the 90's where i was between jobs and enrollments where i was trading for cards that were easily sold for cash. Howling Mines, Nevinyrral's Disk, Birds of Paradise, dual lands. any of those were $5 cash, almost instantly. most duals cost me about $3. it's insane what they go for now.
trading has gotten way more formal and less fun now. also they print way too many garbage cards that are worth nothing. the first few sets they couldn't keep up with demand, and those are the cards that are still pretty expensive.
now the sets are hit and miss. back in the day, i think stores and lack of supply and general usage of the internet kept rares in the couple of dollar range and up. now there are "bulk rares" that are like $.10 or so. or there are staple cards that are common that are $5 or more, and foil ultra rares that can be triple digits in price even in print, but those are the exception, not the rule.
still having some of the old cards and seeing the prices on the secondary market, my fear would be that some new Hasbro CEO could come in and just rescind the reserved list and basically just print money in the short term and rerelease the paper cards like they did online.
but developers want to build expensive housing unless they are incentivized otherwise. the margins are better that way. that's what the market gets you.
off-topic, but if you want to go, just go. unless scalping is different than almost anywhere i've been in the country(check local laws, Arlington, TX is dumb) you can usually get in for less than stubhub prices. it helps to find the people the scalpers are looking to buy from before they do
we got into the OU/OSU game in Columbus for less than face
i've only paid appreciably more than face once, and that was when OU played Florida in Miami for the national championship in 2009
i don't have hard numbers, but i've done this over fifty times in the last 10+ years, both coasts, bowl games, etc... mostly college football, but a couple NFL games as well.
there have even been a few times where i was nervous and bought tickets beforehand because it was a big game, and then regretted it when i got there and found cheaper better seats than what i could get beforehand.
i worry that sites like stubhub could stifle availability at games if more people try to just sell online instead of taking them to the stadium
hasn't seemed to have been an issue yet though.
i'm afraid the venues could make more tickets non-transferable and force you into stubhub so they could get a cut of the secondary market, it could actually make it more expensive to get tickets in the end for average events, low end tickets anyway