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It depends on how you define "trick." If you're going into it with eyes wide open, you're using it to derive the benefits, and you've got good self-control, the
by jonnathanson 14y ago
It depends on how you define "trick." If you're going into it with eyes wide open, you're using it to derive the benefits, and you've got good self-control, then a loyalty program can be very valuable to you as a consumer.
If you're going into it expecting benefits, and you find yourself getting carried away and overspending, then it's less valuable to you.
I wouldn't call it a trick, so much as I'd call it a loyalty program -- with all the potential risks and rewards that such a term entails. There's nothing necessarily shady or evil about a loyalty program. Indeed, if it makes Amazon a much better consumer experience for you, it can be a win-win.
- _delirium 14y agoIf it was an option, like you can currently choose to buy Amazon gift cards or enroll in Prime, sure. Even an option with incentives. But if you move towards making proprietary currency the only way to pay in a given area, it seems shady to me. Not illegal-type shady, but has-bad-motives-type shady. These kinds of proprietary currencies are a typically deliberate attempt to reduce the transparency of prices, by adding an addition layer of indirection people have to mentally jump through in order to think accurately about and compare them (you can see that in part in how most such currencies pick weird exchange rates, not decimal ones that would be easier to think about).
- tspiteri 14y agoBut if you move towards making proprietary currency the only way to pay in a given area, it seems shady to me. Somehow, I doubt Amazon plan to remove the other payment options.
- beowulfey 14y agoOne such example could be the Microsoft Points - perfectly falls under your description. I can never remember the exchange rates, and they deliberately offset the prices so you always have residual points. For example, the minimum points you can buy are 400 ($5) but the cheapest item is 80, then 240, then 360... so you will never be able to spend ALL of them entirely (barring many, many transactions).
- jacques_chester 14y agoAn additional twist is to price things in prime numbers so that buying multiples leaves a residual balance.
- eterm 14y agoBut isn't every number the sum of two primes?
- jacques_chester 14y ago> buying multiples Plus there's stuff like using off-by-one values for fractional exchange. Eg 79 points for 99c, or vice versa. If you step to 80p / dollar it's easy to calculate a sufficiently-good approximation mentally, but lots of people aren't used to mental shortcuts like that.
- girvo 14y agoMy issue with loyalty programs is that they are used for in-store analytics. I don't like being the focus of analytics sometimes.
- philwelch 14y agoYou realize that Amazon can already run all the analytics they want when you buy anything from Amazon, right?
- girvo 14y agoIndeed. I wasn't talking about Amazon per se, more discussing loyalty cards in general. For example, I purchase some RayBan sunglasses the other day in Brisbane city, and they asked for a _lot_ of personal details. Far more than were needed for warranty purposes, and the like. I have issues with things like that :)