19 ms·

Jonathan's Card

726 points by ams1 15y ago

EmielMols 15y ago
So, anybody set up the Auto-Reload yet ;-)?
emeltzer 15y ago
The twitter feed updates once per minute, so if the $100 is spent by a bunch of people w/in that period of time, it will just show -$100. Should be checkable by Jonathan?
danielodio 15y ago
@Socialize just loaded $100 on the card: http://twitter.com/#!/Socialize/status/100347389134643200 http://twitter.com/#!/Socialize/status/100347389134643200 Here's the conf: http://drod.io/2R3o0I2a3R3n3S2L1J2N http://drod.io/2R3o0I2a3R3n3S2L1J2N
- funthree 15y ago
  You deserve upvotes (and I upvoted you) but someone just nabbed that entire $100 off the card within a few moments of it being there...
- dmn001 15y ago
  It looks like someone has figured out how to empty the card, in 2 minutes: https://twitter.com/#!/jonathanscard/status/100347499188977665 https://twitter.com/#!/jonathanscard/status/1003474991889776...
  - danielodio 15y ago
    I heard that! Looks like Jonathan's social experiment is clashing w/ eBay's "people are good" philosophy... either that or there are a LOT of thirsty people all at the same time. Regardless, I'm glad we tried it; anyone have any theories of how it's being hacked?
    - funthree 15y ago
      I think someone could have bought a SBux card with it. Looks like it has happened at least a few times now all within less than a minute or two of the balance being there. An employee or someone camping a store, perhaps... Is it possible to use the number to buy a card off their website online?
      - danielodio 15y ago
        I'll be willing to put another $100 on the card on behalf of @Socialize's SDK Speed Challenge ( http://go.GetSocialize.com/SDK-Challenge http://go.GetSocialize.com/SDK-Challenge) if someone can come up with a way to track who's hacking it. Any ideas?
        funthree 15y ago
        I wonder what data you could get from reading the actual barcode? Would the CSC be in there? Edit: I just checked with an online barcode reader and this isnt the case. It resolves to 6061006913522430
        lurker19 15y ago
        How is this post not spam?
      - nick007 15y ago
        is there a way to figure out what store the purchases are coming from?
        danielodio 15y ago
        Someone is DEFINITELY messing with it -- nobody buys exactly $45 in Starbucks: http://twitter.com/#!/jonathanscard/status/100356049755844608 http://twitter.com/#!/jonathanscard/status/10035604975584460...
        nick007 15y ago
- hassanhassan 15y ago
  That's awesome! I wonder if more companies will jump on this for the goodwill. A bummer about the $100 being emptied in minutes though.
funthree 15y ago
Potentially abusive use shown in these tweets. http://twitter.com/#!/jonathanscard/status/100347499188977665 http://twitter.com/#!/jonathanscard/status/10034749918897766... http://twitter.com/#!/jonathanscard/status/100346742842728448 http://twitter.com/#!/jonathanscard/status/10034674284272844... http://twitter.com/#!/jonathanscard/status/100341959557775360 http://twitter.com/#!/jonathanscard/status/10034195955777536... Edit: Any ideas? Edit: It just happened again... http://twitter.com/#!/jonathanscard/status/100356049755844608 http://twitter.com/#!/jonathanscard/status/10035604975584460... Edit: More... http://twitter.com/#!/jonathanscard/status/100362860525395968 http://twitter.com/#!/jonathanscard/status/10036286052539596... http://twitter.com/#!/jonathanscard/status/100364864173776897 http://twitter.com/#!/jonathanscard/status/10036486417377689... http://twitter.com/#!/jonathanscard/status/100365362465476608 http://twitter.com/#!/jonathanscard/status/10036536246547660...
- hassanhassan 15y ago
  Something does sound fishy. I wonder why someone would ruin the fun for everyone involved.
  - JohnLBevan 15y ago
    $100 spent on coffee for the homeless maybe? Just to take an optimistic view on the data.
    - hassanhassan 15y ago
      You could be right, since something similar did take place as can be confirmed in one of the posts below (a large purchase for the homeless). But certainly we can agree that $15, $30, and $100 being drained in minutes to the exact penny must be cause for concern. Edit: draining to $0.00 is OK, as jonathan explains below.
      - jonathanstark 15y ago
        Jonathan here: Draining the card to the penny is not weird. If there is $10 on the card and your purchase is $11.50, $10 will be removed from the card and you have to pay the remaining $1.50 some other way. Expected behavior :) j
ben1040 15y ago
This reminds me of the drive-through "pay-it-forward" chains that spontaneously appear from time to time: http://seattletimes.nwsource.com/html/localnews/2004084452_webstarbucks20m.html?syndication=rss http://seattletimes.nwsource.com/html/localnews/2004084452_w...
notJim 15y ago
There's no money on the card? http://jonathanstark.com/card/api/latest http://jonathanstark.com/card/api/latest
- jonknee 15y ago
  There's $46.88 now, it fluctuates a lot.
pangram 15y ago
Whenever I go through a toll bridge, I frequently pay the toll of the person behind me. I've sometimes wondered if it propagates backward at all. For the Starbucks card, I would love to live in a society where this could work. Unfortunately it's one of those things where one anonymous bad egg will ruin (i.e., drain the account) for everyone else. Some way to restrict it to a community with less anonymity would help (i.e., go to a web site, auth through hacker news, and then you get the image -- then it is tied to your HN identity).
- _285ng 15y ago
  My wife works at a Starbucks with a drive-thru and says that the chain reaction frequently persists until the line is emptied; the longest such chain was around twenty cars.
- jessevondoom 15y ago
  For a more practical membership-share or coffee-club type of set up restrictions make sense...but in this case I think the anonymity of it all is the interesting part — seeing the behavior patterns emerge naturally and anonymously will be very telling.
- jarin 15y ago
  I've always seen karma as more of a net effect than a mystical thing. In practical terms, paying the toll of the person behind you may not directly propagate to tolls being paid. However, the recipients are going to be just that much happier or less stressed out, and are likely going to pass that mood along to the people they interact with in some way. It may only make a small, localized part of the world a tiny fraction of a percent better, but it adds up. I think it was Steven Covey who wrote somewhere about the trim tab on a giant ship's rudder. It's expensive/hard to build a motor that can turn the rudders on a giant container ship directly while it's in motion, but all it takes is a little mini-flap on the edge of the giant rudder.
- snprbob86 15y ago
  > I frequently pay the toll of the person behind me In what country/state/city? Is that legal? In most (all?) US cities, it is illegal to fill other peoples' parking meters because that robs the city of fines. But maybe it's not a concern for tolls? > I've sometimes wondered if it propagates backward at all. At most, it would only reach exactly the car behind you. If that driver decides to pay the toll anyway (or the attendant secretly pockets the additional payment), the extra payment would be surely be swallowed.
useflyer 15y ago
this is completely amazing and a great proof of concept -- there is so much that could be built on top of this
- pshc 15y ago
  A while ago I was toying with the idea of making a BitCoin<->SBUX automated exchanger for fun, since card transactions are free and could be automated relatively easily. Never did get around to it. Also, there's a rather large scammy underside to BitCoin that would probably arbitrage the hell out of it.
  - pnathan 15y ago
    Arbitrage with BitCoin? Surely you joke!
apaprocki 15y ago
Interesting experiment in that the image is public with no signup/restriction to get at it. You would need to have a continuous stream of new "pay-it-forward" users to add money on the card, no? There are lots of coffee drinkers in the world... Wasn't there something in the news not too long ago about an investment firm that ran this way? :)
- rflrob 15y ago
  > Wasn't there something in the news not too long ago about an investment firm that ran this way? :) Only if there's also a continuous stream of people who are drinking without paying. If, out of a sense of community responsibility, people pay in close to what they drink (or a little bit more), then this system works.
  - apaprocki 15y ago
    Yes, but that is kind of what posting the image without a barrier to entry kind of guarantees, no? I guess that is the 'experiment'.. It would be more interesting if there were two cards, one public, one restricted to HN members or some other subset of 'public'.
BlackJack 15y ago
The balance just went from $0 to $40 - awful nice of whoever did it. I'm a big fan of this idea - put in $5 and you can help out someone who you've probably never met!
- startupfounder 15y ago
  what about buying a coffee and then loading the exact amount back on the card?
  - brk 15y ago
    Seems to kind of defeat the point? Use it when you can't afford coffee, refill it when you can afford a coffee plus a little more...
    - Peaker 15y ago
      I don't understand: Do people really alternate between being able to afford a coffee and not being able to, more than a couple of times in a lifetime?
      - lucianof 15y ago
        Being able to afford something and having enough change in the pockets is not necessarily the same. Plus, I guess a coffee you got for free because of the kindness of a stranger might taste sweeter than your regular venti.
      - gnaritas 15y ago
        Seriously, many people experience that weekly. That's what it means to live paycheck to paycheck.
        brianleb 15y ago
        I'm really not trying to be critical of other people's lifestyles (and I like the idea behind Jonathan's Card), but when it comes down to it I would want to be able to educate those people that they are living outside of their means rather than enable them. If you're living paycheck to paycheck and buying Starbucks every morning, that's definitely part of your problem. I understand and fully appreciate paying a bit more for a quality product, but when it comes down to it, being able to start a savings and plan for your future is more important than enjoying a better cup of coffee in the morning. It's directly analagous to buying a car that's out of your price range (say, a Lexus when you're only bringing in $35,000 a year pre-tax) and struggling to pay the note on it every month. You really can live with the cheaper product, and in the long run it may do you a world of good. Am I wrong? I'd like to see some other people's input on this idea.
canistr 15y ago
And in case anyone was wondering the first balance he tweeted was: jonathanscard I got $7.91 left on me. 18 Jul
ericbrunstad 15y ago
It would be cool if something like this could be done for cheap microprocessor boards so people who can't afford to start with embedded development can be helped by others.
dustyreagan 15y ago
This is a really cool experiment. Coffee seems like the perfect use case since it's awkward to exploit, in that you're not going to buy $100 worth of coffee, just because the card has $100 on it. But what about other physical goods, like Barnes & Nobles, HEB, Home Depot?
- redthrowaway 15y ago
  Well, you could buy a $100 starbucks card, which would break things. Someone already spent $30: http://twitter.com/#!/jonathanscard/status/100297780123275264 http://twitter.com/#!/jonathanscard/status/10029778012327526...
  - Sam_Odio 15y ago
    That was me. One latte plus $25 worth of food for two homeless guys outside. Turns out they didn't want any of it. I think I might've insulted them by bringing them food that they hadn't asked for. :/
    - iamdave 15y ago
      This is a pretty great counterpoint to people who see something like this and immediately think of those who want to 'game the game'. Not that the exception proves the rule, but altruism does (in my opinion) beget altruism, good on you Sam.
      - TranceaddicT 15y ago
        Too bad the altruism was a ruse.
    - jarin 15y ago
      Or maybe they weren't homeless? Giving unsolicited food to homeless people is sort of like asking a woman when the baby is due. It's also important to remember that they may be homeless but many homeless people still have their pride and feel awful about having to ask for handouts, let alone have people randomly take pity on them. I've lived in downtown San Diego for a while, and I've taken to just getting to know some of the homeless people who hang around the 7-11 by my apartment and buying food for them when they ask me. That being said, you did a good thing by trying :)
rdl 15y ago
It would be really fun to combine this kind of point of sale reward with games or puzzles or tasks, sort of like mechanical Turk combined with OKCupid or wufoo. Cash prizes are less interesting for this kind of thing. (various studies)
- angryasian 15y ago
  >Cash prizes are less interesting for this kind of thing. I've read the same, but I don't believe it. For example people will say that fame is more important than money, but I would argue fame leads to more work, or more free stuff which in turn leads to money or more money than a set cash incentive. Or the case where people do things for points, but when those points are redeemable for physical items or discounts again this leads right back to some sort of cash savings. I think it always go back to some sort of monetary incentive.
  - JohnLBevan 15y ago
    I read in a recent Wired UK article that some banks have opted to pay a sum of money to a charity of their employee's choice, rather than paying the employee a full bonus - the idea being they've found this to be a better motivator for employees. Though admittedly it's also good publicity for the banks running such schemes.
coverband 15y ago
Such a simple and wonderful idea; it brightened my Sunday. (Edit: I wonder how soon it will take SBX to decide that this is a vulnerability in their mobile app and change something that will break this.)
- dvdhsu 15y ago
  It really doesn't seem that much of a "vulnerability" actually. The only way to get a picture is if you get ahold of the victim's phone, or they willingly give it up to you. If you get ahold of the victim's phone, the victim has bigger problems (NFC, e-mail, saved passwords, etc.).
  - tedunangst 15y ago
    All you need is a high-res picture of the victim's phone. Take a picture of them paying, use the same barcode yourself.
dvdhsu 15y ago
As somebody else mentioned, it's unfortunate that one bad person could ruin it for everybody else. Is it possible to restrict the card only to coffee (to prevent huge catering orders)?
- michaelschade 15y ago
  I don't believe you can, since Starbucks lets you use your card for any purchase. That said, even if you could, why restrict it? He mentions that the point of this is to be "an experiment in social sharing of physical goods", so making it something purely built on trust makes the experiment exciting and worthy. If someone does abuse it, then that's just a data point in the experiment; but, if it continues to be replenished, that's a neat observation and a certain +1 for human nature.
- benatkin 15y ago
  Looks like a bad apple or two has helped take the over $50 that was on it an hour or so ago down to $0. I don't see a normal pattern of withdrawing small amounts of money for coffee, that's for sure.
- rmc 15y ago
  It's possible someone could abuse it. It will be interesting experimental data to see if this happens, how often it happens, and how much it happens.
  - deleted 15y ago
    [deleted]
michaelschade 15y ago
Although the bit about paying it forward and social sharing is a great idea on its own, I think I'm a tad more excited that he actually made an API for this. That's seriously awesome.
hassanhassan 15y ago
awesome initiative! I always loved the pay it forward concept. P.S. does anyone want to call this guy Lord Starkbucks? Now I know where Jon Snow ends up.
ookblah 15y ago
Hmm, I think posting the value of the card affects the data points. I understand why it needs to be done, but my thinking is that if nobody knows how much is on there it leaves it less prone to outright abuse. If the card suddenly gets a $100 recharge I'm sure it will be abused a lot more. Maybe that's part of the experiment, but I'd like to see what people do in general without that knowledge. EDIT: or maybe even just a "this card has more than <insert cost of minimum item>" so that people know it can be used, but not how many times.
- jonathanstark 15y ago
  Jonathan here: I've been thinking about this quite a bit. One the one hand, last week some jerk saw a $50 balance and spent the whole thing in one shot. On the other hand, people need to know when there is money on the card if they are thinking about walking down to a sbux to get a coffee. I might try the "there's more than $10 on the card right now". I've also experimented with delaying the reloaded messages, and doling out the money more directly by asking who wants a coffee. Folks who respond get the update if they're quick. We'll see what happens, but I believe that there is a sustainable way to handle it. Cheers! j
  - startupfounder 15y ago
    How about putting everything in units of coffee? "There is at least 1 coffee on me" etc. "5 coffees were just added to me". This might take the emphasis off the amount of money on the card and onto the giving and receiving of coffee.
  - olefoo 15y ago
    What about requiring interaction from purchaser. Require a photo of the purchase. It would add a level of social obligation. You could go further and require a tweet explaining the purchase. You could even add a little homily about good manners and not being greedy to the explanatory text. I think you are doing a very interesting experiment with new financial entities, and I'm curious to see where this leads.
    - 15y ago
gabrielroth 15y ago
I'm kind of playing devil's advocate here and kind of not: How can you justify spending $n to buy coffee for someone with a smartphone instead of donating $n to someone with fewer resources and greater needs?
- div 15y ago
  The same way you justify spending $n on any luxury product you don't really need.
  - startupfounder 15y ago
    just loaded $50 on the card, bought 10+ coffees for tech caffeine addicts, got a sweet tweet because I am looking for a tech co-founder for my funded cleantech startup. thinking outside of the box for recruiting... just saying. Oh, and if anyone is interested in joining wa.tt email me, james@wa.tt
    - yoshyosh 15y ago
      this is an interesting concept. Retweet people, who added money to the card, with an advertisement or announcement of their choice. Only issue I see is people loading the card and just spending it on themselves. Maybe they have to tweet you the advertisement, and then you can retweet, so you get more exposure in their twitter stream as well.
      - startupfounder 15y ago
        Honestly, didn't think about it as "advertising" or getting exposure through tweets. Didn't really think about it at all, just went with my instinct.
    - brokentone 15y ago
      You're doing it wrong.
      - 15y ago
wallflower 15y ago
I know it is a fictional movie but if you haven't seen it, "Pay it Forward" is a movie that might make you briefly think about your impact.
- SoftwareMaven 15y ago
  But stop watching 15 minutes before the end. The end of the movie totally countered everything they were trying to say in the rest of movie, IMO.
angryasian 15y ago
interesting experiment, but all it takes is one troll to ruin the whole thing.
dave1619 15y ago
It would be cool if you could see who paid for your coffee and also who had spent the money, and let them communicate.
- startupfounder 15y ago
  Dave, just did that. Looking for a co-founder for my cleantech startup who likes coffee... very important... Jonathan gave me a sweet shoutout.
- jonathanstark 15y ago
  Jonathan here: I totally agree. The sbux site and card don't support this directly, but I think I have a way to achieve this manually that involves requesting a coffee before you can know how much is on the card. We'll see! Thanks, j
wallflower 15y ago
> Plus, it’s actually kinda fun to see those rewards stars drop into my in-app coffee cup. Well, Jonathan may get the Rewards so it is not completely altruistic. A real-time map of where transactions have been made ala http://twittervision.com http://twittervision.com might be interesting if this card goes viral https://www.starbucks.com/card/rewards https://www.starbucks.com/card/rewards
- jonathanstark 15y ago
  Jonathan here: Yes, unfortunately I do get the rewards. I get a free coffee for every 15 purchased. I figured that the free coffees would accrue to the card itself and therefore every 16th person would get a free coffee. As it turns out, sbux mails free coffee coupons to me: http://yfrog.com/keup3hxj http://yfrog.com/keup3hxj I'm not sure how to redistribute them fairly, but I was thinking that I could at least pass them out at my local store. However, doing so is expressly forbidden and my name is on the postcards. Thoughts? j
  - jason_slack 15y ago
    Keep the coupons? Seriously. I mean, you set this up, you have funded it, etc. Also, Maybe a good idea to ensure auto-reload is not setup on the card! I dont know that it is, but if it is you could be out a significant amount of money. Looking at your API calls I dont see where it has been auto-reloaded. This is a neat idea.
  - mkorfmann 15y ago
    Think of them as a reward for the work you put into this project. You deserve it.
  - jerf 15y ago
    If you're willing to throw the dice a bit, and you wouldn't consider this a tainting factor (no sarcasm), contact Starbucks. There's a distinct possibility they may work with you. Depending on how you judge the risk, you may want to do this anyhow, lest they simply shut the card down entirely in the near future. There is of course the risk that contacting them may cause that result sooner, but... in the long term you're probably better off contacting them anyhow because if they're going to shut it down when you bring it to their attention, they're going to shut it down when they discover it anyhow. I think you still come out ahead in the case where you contact them and they end up not shutting it down when they would have if you didn't contact them. Otherwise, you're "stuck"; be open about it (as you are), and use them or not. I wouldn't hold it against you either way, personally.
lucianof 15y ago
I tried to load it, but all I got was: "This recipient does not accept payments from non-U.S. PayPal accounts." (I'm Swiss) Why would Starbucks restrict from where they get their money?
- mkorfmann 15y ago
  Paying with CC from outside the US works.
  - lucianof 15y ago
    Hm, I didn't feel like giving *$ my email. But now that I tried it it says: "Please select a state or province." (I cant find anything in this list that is not US/Can) and "Please enter a ZIP Code at least 5 characters long" (we just have 4 digits). They just don't want my money..
    - mkorfmann 15y ago
      "Please select a state or a province" I selected "Armed Forces Europe" ;)
      - lucianof 15y ago
        Instead of virtually enlisting in the US Army I decided to just donate 10x what I tried to load on the card to a charity for Somalia. Thanks Jonathan for igniting my desire to give!
        mkorfmann 15y ago
        How is that Jonathans fault?
        kapnobatairza 15y ago
        I think he was being genuine.
stringbot 15y ago
And Starbucks shuts this down in 5... 4... 3... 2...
- scrrr 15y ago
  Why should they?
  - kristofferR 15y ago
    Because he gets a lot of free coffee rebates.
    - JohnLBevan 15y ago
      as a result of SB getting a lot more coffee sales.
    - manojlds 15y ago
      Why would they care as long they get 15 cups of coffee sold? And one person with lots of free coffee tokens is very less likely to use them all than various persons having them.
  - stringbot 15y ago
    I don't think they _should_, I just think they _will_. Really, what international megachain wants people doing "social experiments" with their customer-loyalty infrastructure?
  - deleted 15y ago
    [deleted]
michaelschade 15y ago
I've created a Haskell implementation of his API: http://rawr.mschade.me/jonathanscard/ http://rawr.mschade.me/jonathanscard/ The page on Rawr includes a basic usage example as well as links to my implementation on GitHub and Hackage.
JonathanStanton 15y ago
Out of curiosity, every 15 coffees people buy, does Starbucks send you a coupon for a free drink in the mail?
eggbrain 15y ago
Things like this are just apt for abuse. While in real life when this happens, we get a small connection with the person (they live near me / they also were getting coffee), on the internet, people only see a free gift card that automatically refills itself, and not the people that paid for it. When you are playing with other peoples money, it's hard to be frugal.
- Sam_Odio 15y ago
  It looks like things have died down. The steady state seems to be one where the balance is low and the transactions are small: http://dpaste.com/589113/ http://dpaste.com/589113/. That would imply that the card is currently being used as intended.
  - startupfounder 15y ago
    Looks like it only gets abused when there is a high balance that people can see on the twitter feed. A solution is to focus on coffee not money. "at least one coffee is available" or "buy someone a coffee, no coffee available" or "someone gave the gift of a coffee". Oh, FYI free coffee refills after purchase in shore.
    - 44Aman 15y ago
      Indeed, the monetary value makes things impersonal - great idea!
    - TranceaddicT 15y ago
      The unfortunate thing about structuring the card in that manner is that: 1) it's not the way the card is programmed to work and 2)the experiment was to provide a vehicle for those who can't to benefit from those who can. The moment the individual the experiment as designed for would end the experiment; the inevitable end of buy one, give one.
  - modoc 15y ago
    Except by you stealing from it....
danielodio 15y ago
OK I just tried a test: @Socialize put $49 on the card -- let's see if a smaller amount still tips off the hacker: http://drod.io/2E071F3T0C0V0G1w0f39 http://drod.io/2E071F3T0C0V0G1w0f39
- danielodio 15y ago
  the $49 is on there! Someone go buy a latte, quick! http://drod.io/3F0U1n340W1c0H1H0F29 http://drod.io/3F0U1n340W1c0H1H0F29
  - Klondike 15y ago
    That $49 sparked my walk over to Starbucks on the corner to buy one. (I put $10 on the card last night myself, hadn't used any.) By the time I was halfway there it was gone, and I decided to just buy it anyway, hoping it'd gotten filled but the feed hadn't updated yet -- and the barista gave it to me for free, unprovoked. I didn't even have to present the card.
danielodio 15y ago
OK I'm going to go nuclear to determine if this is some automated script or a manual hack: @Socialize just put $300 (!!!) on the card (remember... this is to promote the SDK Speed Challenge... so maybe click the link so I can claim some kind of ROI! http://go.GetSocialize.com/SDK-Challenge http://go.GetSocialize.com/SDK-Challenge) I figure if it's a script, the $300 will disappear instantly. But if it's manual, it's unlikely that someone could manually xfer that at a Starbucks counter w/o getting questioned. Confirmations (max was $100 at a time): http://drod.io/0G391o170o1e1V0Y400H http://drod.io/0G391o170o1e1V0Y400H http://drod.io/1t362M3B1a0t421I1Q0b http://drod.io/1t362M3B1a0t421I1Q0b http://drod.io/2O1R052m0g0q1g1P1x1V http://drod.io/2O1R052m0g0q1g1P1x1V
- jonathanstark 15y ago
  Jonathan here: The card was not hacked. Looks more like you're just trying to promote your link. Thanks though. Cheers! j
  - danielodio 15y ago
    Jonathan, re: not hacked -- do you think people are really spending exactly $45 at Starbucks in one shot?
    - michaelschade 15y ago
      See http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=2858228 http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=2858228
    - danielodio 15y ago
      @michaelschade that's my point exactly: $45 was removed and $4 was left on the card: http://twitter.com/#!/jonathanscard/status/100356049755844608 http://twitter.com/#!/jonathanscard/status/10035604975584460... So someone either bought exactly $45 worth of Starbucks on the card within minutes of me putting $49 on it, or someone is hacking it.
  - deleted 15y ago
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rglover 15y ago
Standing in line waiting for my drink. Cool experiment. Going to put the cash back when I get home.
- rglover 15y ago
  Follow-up, going to add money now but learning why for the modest bunch, this is genius. I spent a bout $5.50 USD to get a drink for my girlfriend and I. When I go to the Starbucks reload a card site, I have to put at least $10.00 USD on the card. What's more is this made me really think about the idea of Google Wallet and any other phone-based credit card apps. In theory, I could take a screenshot of anyone's card and just mail it to myself. Does anyone know if there's plans to randomize barcodes/symbols to prevent things like this? This really just brightened up my Sunday evening.
jt2190 15y ago
"Jonathan's Card is an experiment in social sharing of physical goods using digital currency on mobile phones." What, exactly, is the hypothesis? While this _seems_ cool, I really don't understand what he's setting out to prove, that we don't already know: This will work until the number of people who abuse it grows to a certain point, after which everyone will loose faith, and nobody will contribute more funds. [Ha. I just noticed the posts describing how this is being hacked.]
danielodio 15y ago
$5,000 for @jonathanscard ... why not! http://twitter.com/#!/Socialize/status/100375061587951616 http://twitter.com/#!/Socialize/status/100375061587951616
- deleted 15y ago
  [deleted]
grandalf 15y ago
It worked! Thanks for the iced Americano and pastry!
- startupfounder 15y ago
  I think you might be the only person who has given thanks verbally back to the community... good on ya!
deleted 15y ago
[deleted]
connor 15y ago
I agree, photos, names, or some proof of humanity of the people behind the karma would help to stem abuse. The internet almost makes this abuse of karma easier due to the anonymity. You just don't feel as bad.
Qa8BBatwHxK8Pu 15y ago
US only?
russjhammond 15y ago
Here is a heat map of the location of @ mentions for @jonathanscard, which for the most part is the location of those that have added funds to the card. http://www.myheatmap.com/maps/b2Pqu0EGSgs= http://www.myheatmap.com/maps/b2Pqu0EGSgs=
corroded 15y ago
this is such a good thing and i hate to see this go to waste when some capitalist bastard starts selling coffees for half the price using the card.
jonb 15y ago
I contributed in order to get people telling my wife (http://twitter.com/#!/raintea http://twitter.com/#!/raintea) Happy Birthday tomorrow (8/8). Thought I'd cross-post here for the cause too :)
brianleb 15y ago
This reminds me of something that happened when I was just a bit younger... My girlfriend and I were graduating from pharmacy school and she was applying for residency positions (yes, they have those for pharmacists). Well, she found out she got the one she really wanted and so that night we went out to a nice dinner to celebrate. We did it up like you would expect a happy couple to - nice bottle of wine, share an appetizer and dessert, etc. We were still living on loans at the time and so in my head I was keeping track of about how much the meal was going to run me at the end of the night (for better or worse - keep in mind we were in college at the time). We had easily cleared a hundred bucks (quite the meal for college students who usually eat $7 sandwiches or more likely cook for themselves!), and when it was time for the bill, our waitress told us "The couple that was sitting over there paid for it." ! You wanna talk about made our day? Try made our week. We had seen the older couple earlier, but we didn't know them, and they were gone by the time we got our bill. We couldn't even thank them, and we were just so... shocked. Since then, whenever we go out for a nice meal, I look for a young couple who looks happy and in love, just waiting to return that favor. C.S. Lewis described altruism in one of his apologist books as a "good infection" - kindness that spreads uncontrollably. I can't do anything but agree.
- jonathanstark 15y ago
  Jonathan here: Thank you so much for sharing your story – it really made my day. "Kindness that spreads uncontrollably" perfectly sums up my highest hopes for this experiment. Best, j
  - manojlds 15y ago
    Difference being there could be a time when I couldn't afford a hundred dollar dinner and then time when I can afford it. But a cup of coffee, not really sure if there will be times when I can afford and not afford it.
    - bgurupra 15y ago
      actually I can see how this will get down voted - but if a person has a smart phone what are the chances he can't really pay for this coffee? (not a rhetorical question but a purely probabilistic one) - so maybe this experiment may not test the true altruistic nature of people but more the curiosity of participating in an experiment like this?
jyap 15y ago
I put in $11. Part of it was to download my iOS app Canon Lens Buddy (http://bit.ly/pe2KFS http://bit.ly/pe2KFS) as part of Advertising/social experiment. The credits lasted 10 minutes before used up. Should be interesting to see if this results in any downloads. Proof of top up: http://twitpic.com/62shre http://twitpic.com/62shre
robryan 15y ago
I don't really like how this is playing out, seems every time the card gets a decent amount of funds it gets takes in 1 lump sum. As people have said I think the buy a gift card thing ruins it, socially I don't think people would run up $100 purchase in one go unless they aren't buying coffee/ food. If people donating to it's money is all going to a couple of people working the system for their own gain it doesn't really motivate people to give to it.
projectionist 15y ago
Reminds me of cafe in Japan where you order for person who comes after you and you eat what was ordered by person before you http://www.cabel.name/2009/09/kashiwa-mystery-cafe.html http://www.cabel.name/2009/09/kashiwa-mystery-cafe.html
artursapek 15y ago
I hope Starbucks' system can handle the amount of activity this thing is eventually going to get! You're picking up a lot of steam.
Udo 15y ago
At this point it's clear that the card can be abused as there are people who for some reason think it's cool to suck the balance completely dry. However, a company like Starbucks could set something up that is very similar to Jonathan's experiment but with a reduced abuse potential: just introduce a card with a limit per transaction. For example, if you could only charge 6 USD per purchase to the card, it would make life difficult for the cheaters.
david927 15y ago
There's a cafe under the castle in Prague where for a decade or more, patrons can buy an extra coffee for someone else. A physical cup goes up on a line above the counter. Others, usually students, will come in, see the cups, and ask for the free coffee. A Czech architecture student told me she never paid for a coffee -- just took one from those donated. When I would visit the cafe, I would make sure to add another cup or two to the line. Jonathan's Card didn't seems to work, and it makes me think (unsurprisingly) that what works at local levels as this cafe in Prague, can't work in the Extremistan that is the entire global community. We're so used to all the benefits of this new, suddenly-made-close world: play poker with a guy in Singapore one moment, buy an antique off an old woman in Portugal the next, without moving anything but the mouse; that we forget the beauty and function that the local still provides.
joshmlewis 15y ago
I used to work at Chick-fil=A before I started working for a startup and we would get people that would start paying for the people behind them in the drive thru and the next car would pull up and we'd say: Hey you had a...(whatever they had)..and the car behind you has already taken care of it. They would look shocked, smile, and say well we will get the car behind us. And this would go on for 10 or more cars. It was really awesome. We also had people come through and ask for food for a homeless guy that sits on the off ramp on our interstate exit, and Chick-fil-A would give them food to take to the homeless guy and I'm sure many more situations occur all across the country that make peoples lives better. I think there is a thread of hope in humanity.
johnzimmerman 15y ago
I love this idea.
irishado 15y ago
I was living in Dublin and came across a guy in the street asking for money for a "Cup of Tea", But I noticed he had a bag of tools for plastering and asked him why he was on the street. Seems that he had been working in Dublin as there was no work in belfast and he needed to pay the family bills and one of the flat mates ran off with the rent and he was kicked out by the landord and his work had dryed up. I gave him twenty euros for food and the name of a nice B&B asked him to meet me the next day in the same spot. I gave him about 60 euros the next day to get him back to belfast where he lived. Told him to do something nice for a stranger some time. I believe in Karma but I don't do nice things to have nice things happen to me I do nice things to have nice things happen to others.
irishado 15y ago
Just bought a coffee in the UK thanks Jonathan Http://irishado.blogspot.com for a picture of the two Starbucks staff that served me in Birmingham, Victoria square [EDIT] -> I bought a tall drip coffee and the balance dropped from 54.90 to zero between two twitter updates. Now with 2,756 followers on his twitter feed I'm not surprised that 50 dollars dropped that fast. Don't forget that twitters API only allows a certain number of calls per hour. So it is very possible that people are using it properly but its giving the impression that someone is draining the card. Don't forget that as per the statement that someone made about someone buying a coffee machine and paying the rest on their visa. That's a big risk to take there could be only $5 on the card and they would have to pay the rest. The Twitter feed is not per second transactions. It would be great if Starbucks could give an API call to Jonathan to pull out once per hour the transactions + store location information for that hour which could then be put into a global heat map and would show very interesting results. Thanks again.
aoberoi 15y ago
just made a basic visualization of the data on the balances endpoint. http://aoberoi.me/jonathans-card/ http://aoberoi.me/jonathans-card/ I'm thinking about what types of interesting questions we can answer by visualizing the data. If anyone wants to contribute to that effort, fork me on github (https://github.com/aoberoi/jonathans-card https://github.com/aoberoi/jonathans-card) and send me a pull request, i'll update the site.
chandraonline 15y ago
This is a great experiment. I just added some money to the card. I wonder to prevent abuse, if perhaps you should use two cards , one for people to give to (A) and the other to use at starbucks (B). You can transfer from (A) to (B), when the balance of (B) goes below a certain amount say $15 so that one person can't abuse the card by taking away all the existing balance.
warrantsuspect 15y ago
You can check the balance here http://www.talkaboutdesign.com/starbucks/ http://www.talkaboutdesign.com/starbucks/
realsociable 15y ago
Karma Behaviorism: Does It Pay Off? http://bit.ly/nMPtFV http://bit.ly/nMPtFV
samspot 15y ago
I think it is wonderful that many are generously giving others free coffee. But... how many of them really believe in karma?

726 points by ams1 15y ago

So, anybody set up the Auto-Reload yet ;-)?

The twitter feed updates once per minute, so if the $100 is spent by a bunch of people w/in that period of time, it will just show -$100. Should be checkable by Jonathan?

danielodio 15y ago

@Socialize just loaded $100 on the card: http://twitter.com/#!/Socialize/status/100347389134643200 http://twitter.com/#!/Socialize/status/100347389134643200 Here's the conf: http://drod.io/2R3o0I2a3R3n3S2L1J2N http://drod.io/2R3o0I2a3R3n3S2L1J2N

funthree 15y ago
You deserve upvotes (and I upvoted you) but someone just nabbed that entire $100 off the card within a few moments of it being there...
dmn001 15y ago
It looks like someone has figured out how to empty the card, in 2 minutes: https://twitter.com/#!/jonathanscard/status/100347499188977665 https://twitter.com/#!/jonathanscard/status/1003474991889776...
- danielodio 15y ago
  I heard that! Looks like Jonathan's social experiment is clashing w/ eBay's "people are good" philosophy... either that or there are a LOT of thirsty people all at the same time. Regardless, I'm glad we tried it; anyone have any theories of how it's being hacked?
  - funthree 15y ago
    I think someone could have bought a SBux card with it. Looks like it has happened at least a few times now all within less than a minute or two of the balance being there. An employee or someone camping a store, perhaps... Is it possible to use the number to buy a card off their website online?
    - danielodio 15y ago
      I'll be willing to put another $100 on the card on behalf of @Socialize's SDK Speed Challenge ( http://go.GetSocialize.com/SDK-Challenge http://go.GetSocialize.com/SDK-Challenge) if someone can come up with a way to track who's hacking it. Any ideas?
      - funthree 15y ago
        I wonder what data you could get from reading the actual barcode? Would the CSC be in there? Edit: I just checked with an online barcode reader and this isnt the case. It resolves to 6061006913522430
      - lurker19 15y ago
        How is this post not spam?
    - nick007 15y ago
      is there a way to figure out what store the purchases are coming from?
      - danielodio 15y ago
        Someone is DEFINITELY messing with it -- nobody buys exactly $45 in Starbucks: http://twitter.com/#!/jonathanscard/status/100356049755844608 http://twitter.com/#!/jonathanscard/status/10035604975584460...
        nick007 15y ago
hassanhassan 15y ago
That's awesome! I wonder if more companies will jump on this for the goodwill. A bummer about the $100 being emptied in minutes though.

funthree 15y ago

Potentially abusive use shown in these tweets. http://twitter.com/#!/jonathanscard/status/100347499188977665 http://twitter.com/#!/jonathanscard/status/10034749918897766... http://twitter.com/#!/jonathanscard/status/100346742842728448 http://twitter.com/#!/jonathanscard/status/10034674284272844... http://twitter.com/#!/jonathanscard/status/100341959557775360 http://twitter.com/#!/jonathanscard/status/10034195955777536... Edit: Any ideas? Edit: It just happened again... http://twitter.com/#!/jonathanscard/status/100356049755844608 http://twitter.com/#!/jonathanscard/status/10035604975584460... Edit: More... http://twitter.com/#!/jonathanscard/status/100362860525395968 http://twitter.com/#!/jonathanscard/status/10036286052539596... http://twitter.com/#!/jonathanscard/status/100364864173776897 http://twitter.com/#!/jonathanscard/status/10036486417377689... http://twitter.com/#!/jonathanscard/status/100365362465476608 http://twitter.com/#!/jonathanscard/status/10036536246547660...

hassanhassan 15y ago
Something does sound fishy. I wonder why someone would ruin the fun for everyone involved.
- JohnLBevan 15y ago
  $100 spent on coffee for the homeless maybe? Just to take an optimistic view on the data.
  - hassanhassan 15y ago
    You could be right, since something similar did take place as can be confirmed in one of the posts below (a large purchase for the homeless). But certainly we can agree that $15, $30, and $100 being drained in minutes to the exact penny must be cause for concern. Edit: draining to $0.00 is OK, as jonathan explains below.
    - jonathanstark 15y ago
      Jonathan here: Draining the card to the penny is not weird. If there is $10 on the card and your purchase is $11.50, $10 will be removed from the card and you have to pay the remaining $1.50 some other way. Expected behavior :) j

ben1040 15y ago

This reminds me of the drive-through "pay-it-forward" chains that spontaneously appear from time to time: http://seattletimes.nwsource.com/html/localnews/2004084452_webstarbucks20m.html?syndication=rss http://seattletimes.nwsource.com/html/localnews/2004084452_w...

notJim 15y ago

There's no money on the card? http://jonathanstark.com/card/api/latest http://jonathanstark.com/card/api/latest

jonknee 15y ago
There's $46.88 now, it fluctuates a lot.

pangram 15y ago

Whenever I go through a toll bridge, I frequently pay the toll of the person behind me. I've sometimes wondered if it propagates backward at all. For the Starbucks card, I would love to live in a society where this could work. Unfortunately it's one of those things where one anonymous bad egg will ruin (i.e., drain the account) for everyone else. Some way to restrict it to a community with less anonymity would help (i.e., go to a web site, auth through hacker news, and then you get the image -- then it is tied to your HN identity).

_285ng 15y ago
My wife works at a Starbucks with a drive-thru and says that the chain reaction frequently persists until the line is emptied; the longest such chain was around twenty cars.
jessevondoom 15y ago
For a more practical membership-share or coffee-club type of set up restrictions make sense...but in this case I think the anonymity of it all is the interesting part — seeing the behavior patterns emerge naturally and anonymously will be very telling.
jarin 15y ago
I've always seen karma as more of a net effect than a mystical thing. In practical terms, paying the toll of the person behind you may not directly propagate to tolls being paid. However, the recipients are going to be just that much happier or less stressed out, and are likely going to pass that mood along to the people they interact with in some way. It may only make a small, localized part of the world a tiny fraction of a percent better, but it adds up. I think it was Steven Covey who wrote somewhere about the trim tab on a giant ship's rudder. It's expensive/hard to build a motor that can turn the rudders on a giant container ship directly while it's in motion, but all it takes is a little mini-flap on the edge of the giant rudder.
snprbob86 15y ago
> I frequently pay the toll of the person behind me In what country/state/city? Is that legal? In most (all?) US cities, it is illegal to fill other peoples' parking meters because that robs the city of fines. But maybe it's not a concern for tolls? > I've sometimes wondered if it propagates backward at all. At most, it would only reach exactly the car behind you. If that driver decides to pay the toll anyway (or the attendant secretly pockets the additional payment), the extra payment would be surely be swallowed.

useflyer 15y ago

this is completely amazing and a great proof of concept -- there is so much that could be built on top of this

pshc 15y ago
A while ago I was toying with the idea of making a BitCoin<->SBUX automated exchanger for fun, since card transactions are free and could be automated relatively easily. Never did get around to it. Also, there's a rather large scammy underside to BitCoin that would probably arbitrage the hell out of it.
- pnathan 15y ago
  Arbitrage with BitCoin? Surely you joke!

apaprocki 15y ago

Interesting experiment in that the image is public with no signup/restriction to get at it. You would need to have a continuous stream of new "pay-it-forward" users to add money on the card, no? There are lots of coffee drinkers in the world... Wasn't there something in the news not too long ago about an investment firm that ran this way? :)

rflrob 15y ago
> Wasn't there something in the news not too long ago about an investment firm that ran this way? :) Only if there's also a continuous stream of people who are drinking without paying. If, out of a sense of community responsibility, people pay in close to what they drink (or a little bit more), then this system works.
- apaprocki 15y ago
  Yes, but that is kind of what posting the image without a barrier to entry kind of guarantees, no? I guess that is the 'experiment'.. It would be more interesting if there were two cards, one public, one restricted to HN members or some other subset of 'public'.

BlackJack 15y ago

The balance just went from $0 to $40 - awful nice of whoever did it. I'm a big fan of this idea - put in $5 and you can help out someone who you've probably never met!

startupfounder 15y ago
what about buying a coffee and then loading the exact amount back on the card?
- brk 15y ago
  Seems to kind of defeat the point? Use it when you can't afford coffee, refill it when you can afford a coffee plus a little more...
  - Peaker 15y ago
    I don't understand: Do people really alternate between being able to afford a coffee and not being able to, more than a couple of times in a lifetime?
    - lucianof 15y ago
      Being able to afford something and having enough change in the pockets is not necessarily the same. Plus, I guess a coffee you got for free because of the kindness of a stranger might taste sweeter than your regular venti.
    - gnaritas 15y ago
      Seriously, many people experience that weekly. That's what it means to live paycheck to paycheck.
      - brianleb 15y ago
        I'm really not trying to be critical of other people's lifestyles (and I like the idea behind Jonathan's Card), but when it comes down to it I would want to be able to educate those people that they are living outside of their means rather than enable them. If you're living paycheck to paycheck and buying Starbucks every morning, that's definitely part of your problem. I understand and fully appreciate paying a bit more for a quality product, but when it comes down to it, being able to start a savings and plan for your future is more important than enjoying a better cup of coffee in the morning. It's directly analagous to buying a car that's out of your price range (say, a Lexus when you're only bringing in $35,000 a year pre-tax) and struggling to pay the note on it every month. You really can live with the cheaper product, and in the long run it may do you a world of good. Am I wrong? I'd like to see some other people's input on this idea.

canistr 15y ago

And in case anyone was wondering the first balance he tweeted was: jonathanscard I got $7.91 left on me. 18 Jul

ericbrunstad 15y ago

It would be cool if something like this could be done for cheap microprocessor boards so people who can't afford to start with embedded development can be helped by others.

dustyreagan 15y ago

This is a really cool experiment. Coffee seems like the perfect use case since it's awkward to exploit, in that you're not going to buy $100 worth of coffee, just because the card has $100 on it. But what about other physical goods, like Barnes & Nobles, HEB, Home Depot?

redthrowaway 15y ago
Well, you could buy a $100 starbucks card, which would break things. Someone already spent $30: http://twitter.com/#!/jonathanscard/status/100297780123275264 http://twitter.com/#!/jonathanscard/status/10029778012327526...
- Sam_Odio 15y ago
  That was me. One latte plus $25 worth of food for two homeless guys outside. Turns out they didn't want any of it. I think I might've insulted them by bringing them food that they hadn't asked for. :/
  - iamdave 15y ago
    This is a pretty great counterpoint to people who see something like this and immediately think of those who want to 'game the game'. Not that the exception proves the rule, but altruism does (in my opinion) beget altruism, good on you Sam.
    - TranceaddicT 15y ago
      Too bad the altruism was a ruse.
  - jarin 15y ago
    Or maybe they weren't homeless? Giving unsolicited food to homeless people is sort of like asking a woman when the baby is due. It's also important to remember that they may be homeless but many homeless people still have their pride and feel awful about having to ask for handouts, let alone have people randomly take pity on them. I've lived in downtown San Diego for a while, and I've taken to just getting to know some of the homeless people who hang around the 7-11 by my apartment and buying food for them when they ask me. That being said, you did a good thing by trying :)

rdl 15y ago

It would be really fun to combine this kind of point of sale reward with games or puzzles or tasks, sort of like mechanical Turk combined with OKCupid or wufoo. Cash prizes are less interesting for this kind of thing. (various studies)

angryasian 15y ago
>Cash prizes are less interesting for this kind of thing. I've read the same, but I don't believe it. For example people will say that fame is more important than money, but I would argue fame leads to more work, or more free stuff which in turn leads to money or more money than a set cash incentive. Or the case where people do things for points, but when those points are redeemable for physical items or discounts again this leads right back to some sort of cash savings. I think it always go back to some sort of monetary incentive.
- JohnLBevan 15y ago
  I read in a recent Wired UK article that some banks have opted to pay a sum of money to a charity of their employee's choice, rather than paying the employee a full bonus - the idea being they've found this to be a better motivator for employees. Though admittedly it's also good publicity for the banks running such schemes.

coverband 15y ago

Such a simple and wonderful idea; it brightened my Sunday. (Edit: I wonder how soon it will take SBX to decide that this is a vulnerability in their mobile app and change something that will break this.)

dvdhsu 15y ago
It really doesn't seem that much of a "vulnerability" actually. The only way to get a picture is if you get ahold of the victim's phone, or they willingly give it up to you. If you get ahold of the victim's phone, the victim has bigger problems (NFC, e-mail, saved passwords, etc.).
- tedunangst 15y ago
  All you need is a high-res picture of the victim's phone. Take a picture of them paying, use the same barcode yourself.

dvdhsu 15y ago

As somebody else mentioned, it's unfortunate that one bad person could ruin it for everybody else. Is it possible to restrict the card only to coffee (to prevent huge catering orders)?

michaelschade 15y ago
I don't believe you can, since Starbucks lets you use your card for any purchase. That said, even if you could, why restrict it? He mentions that the point of this is to be "an experiment in social sharing of physical goods", so making it something purely built on trust makes the experiment exciting and worthy. If someone does abuse it, then that's just a data point in the experiment; but, if it continues to be replenished, that's a neat observation and a certain +1 for human nature.
benatkin 15y ago
Looks like a bad apple or two has helped take the over $50 that was on it an hour or so ago down to $0. I don't see a normal pattern of withdrawing small amounts of money for coffee, that's for sure.
rmc 15y ago
It's possible someone could abuse it. It will be interesting experimental data to see if this happens, how often it happens, and how much it happens.
- deleted 15y ago
  [deleted]

michaelschade 15y ago

Although the bit about paying it forward and social sharing is a great idea on its own, I think I'm a tad more excited that he actually made an API for this. That's seriously awesome.

hassanhassan 15y ago

awesome initiative! I always loved the pay it forward concept. P.S. does anyone want to call this guy Lord Starkbucks? Now I know where Jon Snow ends up.

ookblah 15y ago

Hmm, I think posting the value of the card affects the data points. I understand why it needs to be done, but my thinking is that if nobody knows how much is on there it leaves it less prone to outright abuse. If the card suddenly gets a $100 recharge I'm sure it will be abused a lot more. Maybe that's part of the experiment, but I'd like to see what people do in general without that knowledge. EDIT: or maybe even just a "this card has more than <insert cost of minimum item>" so that people know it can be used, but not how many times.

jonathanstark 15y ago
Jonathan here: I've been thinking about this quite a bit. One the one hand, last week some jerk saw a $50 balance and spent the whole thing in one shot. On the other hand, people need to know when there is money on the card if they are thinking about walking down to a sbux to get a coffee. I might try the "there's more than $10 on the card right now". I've also experimented with delaying the reloaded messages, and doling out the money more directly by asking who wants a coffee. Folks who respond get the update if they're quick. We'll see what happens, but I believe that there is a sustainable way to handle it. Cheers! j
- startupfounder 15y ago
  How about putting everything in units of coffee? "There is at least 1 coffee on me" etc. "5 coffees were just added to me". This might take the emphasis off the amount of money on the card and onto the giving and receiving of coffee.
- olefoo 15y ago
  What about requiring interaction from purchaser. Require a photo of the purchase. It would add a level of social obligation. You could go further and require a tweet explaining the purchase. You could even add a little homily about good manners and not being greedy to the explanatory text. I think you are doing a very interesting experiment with new financial entities, and I'm curious to see where this leads.
  - 15y ago

gabrielroth 15y ago

I'm kind of playing devil's advocate here and kind of not: How can you justify spending $n to buy coffee for someone with a smartphone instead of donating $n to someone with fewer resources and greater needs?

div 15y ago
The same way you justify spending $n on any luxury product you don't really need.
- startupfounder 15y ago
  just loaded $50 on the card, bought 10+ coffees for tech caffeine addicts, got a sweet tweet because I am looking for a tech co-founder for my funded cleantech startup. thinking outside of the box for recruiting... just saying. Oh, and if anyone is interested in joining wa.tt email me, james@wa.tt
  - yoshyosh 15y ago
    this is an interesting concept. Retweet people, who added money to the card, with an advertisement or announcement of their choice. Only issue I see is people loading the card and just spending it on themselves. Maybe they have to tweet you the advertisement, and then you can retweet, so you get more exposure in their twitter stream as well.
    - startupfounder 15y ago
      Honestly, didn't think about it as "advertising" or getting exposure through tweets. Didn't really think about it at all, just went with my instinct.
  - brokentone 15y ago
    You're doing it wrong.
    - 15y ago

wallflower 15y ago

I know it is a fictional movie but if you haven't seen it, "Pay it Forward" is a movie that might make you briefly think about your impact.

SoftwareMaven 15y ago
But stop watching 15 minutes before the end. The end of the movie totally countered everything they were trying to say in the rest of movie, IMO.

angryasian 15y ago

interesting experiment, but all it takes is one troll to ruin the whole thing.

dave1619 15y ago

It would be cool if you could see who paid for your coffee and also who had spent the money, and let them communicate.

startupfounder 15y ago
Dave, just did that. Looking for a co-founder for my cleantech startup who likes coffee... very important... Jonathan gave me a sweet shoutout.
jonathanstark 15y ago
Jonathan here: I totally agree. The sbux site and card don't support this directly, but I think I have a way to achieve this manually that involves requesting a coffee before you can know how much is on the card. We'll see! Thanks, j

wallflower 15y ago

> Plus, it’s actually kinda fun to see those rewards stars drop into my in-app coffee cup. Well, Jonathan may get the Rewards so it is not completely altruistic. A real-time map of where transactions have been made ala http://twittervision.com http://twittervision.com might be interesting if this card goes viral https://www.starbucks.com/card/rewards https://www.starbucks.com/card/rewards

jonathanstark 15y ago
Jonathan here: Yes, unfortunately I do get the rewards. I get a free coffee for every 15 purchased. I figured that the free coffees would accrue to the card itself and therefore every 16th person would get a free coffee. As it turns out, sbux mails free coffee coupons to me: http://yfrog.com/keup3hxj http://yfrog.com/keup3hxj I'm not sure how to redistribute them fairly, but I was thinking that I could at least pass them out at my local store. However, doing so is expressly forbidden and my name is on the postcards. Thoughts? j
- jason_slack 15y ago
  Keep the coupons? Seriously. I mean, you set this up, you have funded it, etc. Also, Maybe a good idea to ensure auto-reload is not setup on the card! I dont know that it is, but if it is you could be out a significant amount of money. Looking at your API calls I dont see where it has been auto-reloaded. This is a neat idea.
- mkorfmann 15y ago
  Think of them as a reward for the work you put into this project. You deserve it.
- jerf 15y ago
  If you're willing to throw the dice a bit, and you wouldn't consider this a tainting factor (no sarcasm), contact Starbucks. There's a distinct possibility they may work with you. Depending on how you judge the risk, you may want to do this anyhow, lest they simply shut the card down entirely in the near future. There is of course the risk that contacting them may cause that result sooner, but... in the long term you're probably better off contacting them anyhow because if they're going to shut it down when you bring it to their attention, they're going to shut it down when they discover it anyhow. I think you still come out ahead in the case where you contact them and they end up not shutting it down when they would have if you didn't contact them. Otherwise, you're "stuck"; be open about it (as you are), and use them or not. I wouldn't hold it against you either way, personally.

lucianof 15y ago

I tried to load it, but all I got was: "This recipient does not accept payments from non-U.S. PayPal accounts." (I'm Swiss) Why would Starbucks restrict from where they get their money?

mkorfmann 15y ago
Paying with CC from outside the US works.
- lucianof 15y ago
  Hm, I didn't feel like giving *$ my email. But now that I tried it it says: "Please select a state or province." (I cant find anything in this list that is not US/Can) and "Please enter a ZIP Code at least 5 characters long" (we just have 4 digits). They just don't want my money..
  - mkorfmann 15y ago
    "Please select a state or a province" I selected "Armed Forces Europe" ;)
    - lucianof 15y ago
      Instead of virtually enlisting in the US Army I decided to just donate 10x what I tried to load on the card to a charity for Somalia. Thanks Jonathan for igniting my desire to give!
      - mkorfmann 15y ago
        How is that Jonathans fault?
        kapnobatairza 15y ago
        I think he was being genuine.

stringbot 15y ago

And Starbucks shuts this down in 5... 4... 3... 2...

scrrr 15y ago
Why should they?
- kristofferR 15y ago
  Because he gets a lot of free coffee rebates.
  - JohnLBevan 15y ago
    as a result of SB getting a lot more coffee sales.
  - manojlds 15y ago
    Why would they care as long they get 15 cups of coffee sold? And one person with lots of free coffee tokens is very less likely to use them all than various persons having them.
- stringbot 15y ago
  I don't think they _should_, I just think they _will_. Really, what international megachain wants people doing "social experiments" with their customer-loyalty infrastructure?
- deleted 15y ago
  [deleted]

michaelschade 15y ago

I've created a Haskell implementation of his API: http://rawr.mschade.me/jonathanscard/ http://rawr.mschade.me/jonathanscard/ The page on Rawr includes a basic usage example as well as links to my implementation on GitHub and Hackage.

JonathanStanton 15y ago

Out of curiosity, every 15 coffees people buy, does Starbucks send you a coupon for a free drink in the mail?

eggbrain 15y ago

Things like this are just apt for abuse. While in real life when this happens, we get a small connection with the person (they live near me / they also were getting coffee), on the internet, people only see a free gift card that automatically refills itself, and not the people that paid for it. When you are playing with other peoples money, it's hard to be frugal.

Sam_Odio 15y ago
It looks like things have died down. The steady state seems to be one where the balance is low and the transactions are small: http://dpaste.com/589113/ http://dpaste.com/589113/. That would imply that the card is currently being used as intended.
- startupfounder 15y ago
  Looks like it only gets abused when there is a high balance that people can see on the twitter feed. A solution is to focus on coffee not money. "at least one coffee is available" or "buy someone a coffee, no coffee available" or "someone gave the gift of a coffee". Oh, FYI free coffee refills after purchase in shore.
  - 44Aman 15y ago
    Indeed, the monetary value makes things impersonal - great idea!
  - TranceaddicT 15y ago
    The unfortunate thing about structuring the card in that manner is that: 1) it's not the way the card is programmed to work and 2)the experiment was to provide a vehicle for those who can't to benefit from those who can. The moment the individual the experiment as designed for would end the experiment; the inevitable end of buy one, give one.
- modoc 15y ago
  Except by you stealing from it....

danielodio 15y ago

OK I just tried a test: @Socialize put $49 on the card -- let's see if a smaller amount still tips off the hacker: http://drod.io/2E071F3T0C0V0G1w0f39 http://drod.io/2E071F3T0C0V0G1w0f39

danielodio 15y ago
the $49 is on there! Someone go buy a latte, quick! http://drod.io/3F0U1n340W1c0H1H0F29 http://drod.io/3F0U1n340W1c0H1H0F29
- Klondike 15y ago
  That $49 sparked my walk over to Starbucks on the corner to buy one. (I put $10 on the card last night myself, hadn't used any.) By the time I was halfway there it was gone, and I decided to just buy it anyway, hoping it'd gotten filled but the feed hadn't updated yet -- and the barista gave it to me for free, unprovoked. I didn't even have to present the card.

danielodio 15y ago

OK I'm going to go nuclear to determine if this is some automated script or a manual hack: @Socialize just put $300 (!!!) on the card (remember... this is to promote the SDK Speed Challenge... so maybe click the link so I can claim some kind of ROI! http://go.GetSocialize.com/SDK-Challenge http://go.GetSocialize.com/SDK-Challenge) I figure if it's a script, the $300 will disappear instantly. But if it's manual, it's unlikely that someone could manually xfer that at a Starbucks counter w/o getting questioned. Confirmations (max was $100 at a time): http://drod.io/0G391o170o1e1V0Y400H http://drod.io/0G391o170o1e1V0Y400H http://drod.io/1t362M3B1a0t421I1Q0b http://drod.io/1t362M3B1a0t421I1Q0b http://drod.io/2O1R052m0g0q1g1P1x1V http://drod.io/2O1R052m0g0q1g1P1x1V

jonathanstark 15y ago
Jonathan here: The card was not hacked. Looks more like you're just trying to promote your link. Thanks though. Cheers! j
- danielodio 15y ago
  Jonathan, re: not hacked -- do you think people are really spending exactly $45 at Starbucks in one shot?
  - michaelschade 15y ago
    See http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=2858228 http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=2858228
  - danielodio 15y ago
    @michaelschade that's my point exactly: $45 was removed and $4 was left on the card: http://twitter.com/#!/jonathanscard/status/100356049755844608 http://twitter.com/#!/jonathanscard/status/10035604975584460... So someone either bought exactly $45 worth of Starbucks on the card within minutes of me putting $49 on it, or someone is hacking it.
- deleted 15y ago
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deleted 15y ago

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rglover 15y ago

Standing in line waiting for my drink. Cool experiment. Going to put the cash back when I get home.

rglover 15y ago
Follow-up, going to add money now but learning why for the modest bunch, this is genius. I spent a bout $5.50 USD to get a drink for my girlfriend and I. When I go to the Starbucks reload a card site, I have to put at least $10.00 USD on the card. What's more is this made me really think about the idea of Google Wallet and any other phone-based credit card apps. In theory, I could take a screenshot of anyone's card and just mail it to myself. Does anyone know if there's plans to randomize barcodes/symbols to prevent things like this? This really just brightened up my Sunday evening.

jt2190 15y ago

"Jonathan's Card is an experiment in social sharing of physical goods using digital currency on mobile phones." What, exactly, is the hypothesis? While this _seems_ cool, I really don't understand what he's setting out to prove, that we don't already know: This will work until the number of people who abuse it grows to a certain point, after which everyone will loose faith, and nobody will contribute more funds. [Ha. I just noticed the posts describing how this is being hacked.]

danielodio 15y ago

$5,000 for @jonathanscard ... why not! http://twitter.com/#!/Socialize/status/100375061587951616 http://twitter.com/#!/Socialize/status/100375061587951616

deleted 15y ago
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grandalf 15y ago

It worked! Thanks for the iced Americano and pastry!

startupfounder 15y ago
I think you might be the only person who has given thanks verbally back to the community... good on ya!

deleted 15y ago

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connor 15y ago

I agree, photos, names, or some proof of humanity of the people behind the karma would help to stem abuse. The internet almost makes this abuse of karma easier due to the anonymity. You just don't feel as bad.

Qa8BBatwHxK8Pu 15y ago

US only?

russjhammond 15y ago

Here is a heat map of the location of @ mentions for @jonathanscard, which for the most part is the location of those that have added funds to the card. http://www.myheatmap.com/maps/b2Pqu0EGSgs= http://www.myheatmap.com/maps/b2Pqu0EGSgs=

corroded 15y ago

this is such a good thing and i hate to see this go to waste when some capitalist bastard starts selling coffees for half the price using the card.

jonb 15y ago

I contributed in order to get people telling my wife (http://twitter.com/#!/raintea http://twitter.com/#!/raintea) Happy Birthday tomorrow (8/8). Thought I'd cross-post here for the cause too :)

brianleb 15y ago

This reminds me of something that happened when I was just a bit younger... My girlfriend and I were graduating from pharmacy school and she was applying for residency positions (yes, they have those for pharmacists). Well, she found out she got the one she really wanted and so that night we went out to a nice dinner to celebrate. We did it up like you would expect a happy couple to - nice bottle of wine, share an appetizer and dessert, etc. We were still living on loans at the time and so in my head I was keeping track of about how much the meal was going to run me at the end of the night (for better or worse - keep in mind we were in college at the time). We had easily cleared a hundred bucks (quite the meal for college students who usually eat $7 sandwiches or more likely cook for themselves!), and when it was time for the bill, our waitress told us "The couple that was sitting over there paid for it." ! You wanna talk about made our day? Try made our week. We had seen the older couple earlier, but we didn't know them, and they were gone by the time we got our bill. We couldn't even thank them, and we were just so... shocked. Since then, whenever we go out for a nice meal, I look for a young couple who looks happy and in love, just waiting to return that favor. C.S. Lewis described altruism in one of his apologist books as a "good infection" - kindness that spreads uncontrollably. I can't do anything but agree.

jonathanstark 15y ago
Jonathan here: Thank you so much for sharing your story – it really made my day. "Kindness that spreads uncontrollably" perfectly sums up my highest hopes for this experiment. Best, j
- manojlds 15y ago
  Difference being there could be a time when I couldn't afford a hundred dollar dinner and then time when I can afford it. But a cup of coffee, not really sure if there will be times when I can afford and not afford it.
  - bgurupra 15y ago
    actually I can see how this will get down voted - but if a person has a smart phone what are the chances he can't really pay for this coffee? (not a rhetorical question but a purely probabilistic one) - so maybe this experiment may not test the true altruistic nature of people but more the curiosity of participating in an experiment like this?

jyap 15y ago

I put in $11. Part of it was to download my iOS app Canon Lens Buddy (http://bit.ly/pe2KFS http://bit.ly/pe2KFS) as part of Advertising/social experiment. The credits lasted 10 minutes before used up. Should be interesting to see if this results in any downloads. Proof of top up: http://twitpic.com/62shre http://twitpic.com/62shre

robryan 15y ago

I don't really like how this is playing out, seems every time the card gets a decent amount of funds it gets takes in 1 lump sum. As people have said I think the buy a gift card thing ruins it, socially I don't think people would run up $100 purchase in one go unless they aren't buying coffee/ food. If people donating to it's money is all going to a couple of people working the system for their own gain it doesn't really motivate people to give to it.

projectionist 15y ago

Reminds me of cafe in Japan where you order for person who comes after you and you eat what was ordered by person before you http://www.cabel.name/2009/09/kashiwa-mystery-cafe.html http://www.cabel.name/2009/09/kashiwa-mystery-cafe.html

artursapek 15y ago

I hope Starbucks' system can handle the amount of activity this thing is eventually going to get! You're picking up a lot of steam.

Udo 15y ago

At this point it's clear that the card can be abused as there are people who for some reason think it's cool to suck the balance completely dry. However, a company like Starbucks could set something up that is very similar to Jonathan's experiment but with a reduced abuse potential: just introduce a card with a limit per transaction. For example, if you could only charge 6 USD per purchase to the card, it would make life difficult for the cheaters.

david927 15y ago

There's a cafe under the castle in Prague where for a decade or more, patrons can buy an extra coffee for someone else. A physical cup goes up on a line above the counter. Others, usually students, will come in, see the cups, and ask for the free coffee. A Czech architecture student told me she never paid for a coffee -- just took one from those donated. When I would visit the cafe, I would make sure to add another cup or two to the line. Jonathan's Card didn't seems to work, and it makes me think (unsurprisingly) that what works at local levels as this cafe in Prague, can't work in the Extremistan that is the entire global community. We're so used to all the benefits of this new, suddenly-made-close world: play poker with a guy in Singapore one moment, buy an antique off an old woman in Portugal the next, without moving anything but the mouse; that we forget the beauty and function that the local still provides.

joshmlewis 15y ago

I used to work at Chick-fil=A before I started working for a startup and we would get people that would start paying for the people behind them in the drive thru and the next car would pull up and we'd say: Hey you had a...(whatever they had)..and the car behind you has already taken care of it. They would look shocked, smile, and say well we will get the car behind us. And this would go on for 10 or more cars. It was really awesome. We also had people come through and ask for food for a homeless guy that sits on the off ramp on our interstate exit, and Chick-fil-A would give them food to take to the homeless guy and I'm sure many more situations occur all across the country that make peoples lives better. I think there is a thread of hope in humanity.

johnzimmerman 15y ago

I love this idea.

irishado 15y ago

I was living in Dublin and came across a guy in the street asking for money for a "Cup of Tea", But I noticed he had a bag of tools for plastering and asked him why he was on the street. Seems that he had been working in Dublin as there was no work in belfast and he needed to pay the family bills and one of the flat mates ran off with the rent and he was kicked out by the landord and his work had dryed up. I gave him twenty euros for food and the name of a nice B&B asked him to meet me the next day in the same spot. I gave him about 60 euros the next day to get him back to belfast where he lived. Told him to do something nice for a stranger some time. I believe in Karma but I don't do nice things to have nice things happen to me I do nice things to have nice things happen to others.

irishado 15y ago

Just bought a coffee in the UK thanks Jonathan Http://irishado.blogspot.com for a picture of the two Starbucks staff that served me in Birmingham, Victoria square [EDIT] -> I bought a tall drip coffee and the balance dropped from 54.90 to zero between two twitter updates. Now with 2,756 followers on his twitter feed I'm not surprised that 50 dollars dropped that fast. Don't forget that twitters API only allows a certain number of calls per hour. So it is very possible that people are using it properly but its giving the impression that someone is draining the card. Don't forget that as per the statement that someone made about someone buying a coffee machine and paying the rest on their visa. That's a big risk to take there could be only $5 on the card and they would have to pay the rest. The Twitter feed is not per second transactions. It would be great if Starbucks could give an API call to Jonathan to pull out once per hour the transactions + store location information for that hour which could then be put into a global heat map and would show very interesting results. Thanks again.

aoberoi 15y ago

just made a basic visualization of the data on the balances endpoint. http://aoberoi.me/jonathans-card/ http://aoberoi.me/jonathans-card/ I'm thinking about what types of interesting questions we can answer by visualizing the data. If anyone wants to contribute to that effort, fork me on github (https://github.com/aoberoi/jonathans-card https://github.com/aoberoi/jonathans-card) and send me a pull request, i'll update the site.

chandraonline 15y ago

This is a great experiment. I just added some money to the card. I wonder to prevent abuse, if perhaps you should use two cards , one for people to give to (A) and the other to use at starbucks (B). You can transfer from (A) to (B), when the balance of (B) goes below a certain amount say $15 so that one person can't abuse the card by taking away all the existing balance.

warrantsuspect 15y ago

You can check the balance here http://www.talkaboutdesign.com/starbucks/ http://www.talkaboutdesign.com/starbucks/

realsociable 15y ago

Karma Behaviorism: Does It Pay Off? http://bit.ly/nMPtFV http://bit.ly/nMPtFV

samspot 15y ago

I think it is wonderful that many are generously giving others free coffee. But... how many of them really believe in karma?