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Because they were giving people $1500 to sign up for their card effectively. I am one of those people that signed up. I signed up for no reason other than I am

Because they were giving people $1500 to sign up for their card effectively. I am one of those people that signed up. I signed up for no reason other than I am getting a tremendous amount more than what I am paying for. Last December Chase announced that they lost about 2-300 million off their profits due to the generous promotion. If I taped a dollar bill to every can of Coke and sold them for 50 cents and the sales of Coke exploded, would you say I put a marketing coup on Pepsi? Chase still has extremely generous benefits even without the promo I am wondering how long it will last. As long as it does I will keep the card.

wan23 9y ago
> As long as it does I will keep the card. So you see value in their product and you're a satisfied customer. Is it even possible for a bank to offer anything more?
- intev 9y ago
  I think you're missing his point. He never said that the card isn't valuable, or that the rewards were not worth it. All he said was that it's not considered "genius" if you need to continuously lose money hand over fist by giving away freebies to attract people to your product. It's "genius" when you don't have to do that.
patio11 9y ago
If I taped a dollar bill to every can of Coke and sold them for 50 cents and the sales of Coke exploded, would you say I put a marketing coup on Pepsi? This depends on whether you sell cans of Coke (boring) or convert people into Coke drinkers (very interesting to Coke). Chase invested $X to, effectively, purchase a portfolio of new users. Some members of that portfolio will be worth less than the average cost of acquisition. Some members will be worth much, much, much more. "Banks are full of dumb people who are bad at math" is one of hackers' common beliefs which is not just a vexatious tribal marker but also a really you-have-to-turn-off-your-abilities-to-perceive-the-world-truthfully-to-believe-this vexatious tribal marker.

wan23 9y ago

> As long as it does I will keep the card. So you see value in their product and you're a satisfied customer. Is it even possible for a bank to offer anything more?

intev 9y ago
I think you're missing his point. He never said that the card isn't valuable, or that the rewards were not worth it. All he said was that it's not considered "genius" if you need to continuously lose money hand over fist by giving away freebies to attract people to your product. It's "genius" when you don't have to do that.

patio11 9y ago

If I taped a dollar bill to every can of Coke and sold them for 50 cents and the sales of Coke exploded, would you say I put a marketing coup on Pepsi? This depends on whether you sell cans of Coke (boring) or convert people into Coke drinkers (very interesting to Coke). Chase invested $X to, effectively, purchase a portfolio of new users. Some members of that portfolio will be worth less than the average cost of acquisition. Some members will be worth much, much, much more. "Banks are full of dumb people who are bad at math" is one of hackers' common beliefs which is not just a vexatious tribal marker but also a really you-have-to-turn-off-your-abilities-to-perceive-the-world-truthfully-to-believe-this vexatious tribal marker.