[Answer] How should we evaluate 12306’s upcoming “waitlist ticket purchase” feature for the Spring Festival travel rush? Will it ease the difficulty of getting tickets?

[Answer] How should we evaluate 12306’s upcoming “waitlist ticket purchase” feature for the Spring Festival travel rush? Will it ease the difficulty of getting tickets?

There is always a push and pull between the spear and the shield: when one side advances, the other responds in kind. Whether this feature can actually make a difference depends less on technology than on whether the cost of violating rules and laws is lower than the benefits gained from doing so. As long as there is still substantial profit to be made, some people will continue to take risks, and others will continue to find loopholes in the system.

For 12306, the outdated institutional structure behind China’s vast railway system has long been unable to support advanced products, technology, and reform. And 12306 itself has found it difficult to carve out a way forward within that framework. If there is no way to regulate through market mechanisms, and no strict means of raising the cost of illegal behavior, then limited innovation alone has no real substantive value. Its significance is greater as publicity than in practical effect.