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I applaud the effort Amazon is making to expand its influence, and giving kids an Amazon allowance would lock them in because it doesn't look too easy to conver
by olympus 11y ago
I applaud the effort Amazon is making to expand its influence, and giving kids an Amazon allowance would lock them in because it doesn't look too easy to convert that money back to real cash.
But I don't think this one will stick around for very long. Prepaid cash/debit cards and automated deposits are an older and more proven way of doing this (not to mention just handing your kids $20 in cash every week). By giving them something that is accepted everywhere, you teach them how to handle limited amounts of money and how to resist temptations -- if I drop $5 on gas station snacks, I've just burned up a sizeable chunk of my allowance on something that will be gone in 10 minutes. Giving an allowance is great to teach young teenagers how to handle money before they get their own job, but I don't see Amazon breaking into this and locking kids into buying only from Amazon.
- allworknoplay 11y agoKids? I'm pretty sure the real market here is camgirls and other internet personalities that people want to buy presents for.
- philwelch 11y agoYou can already send Amazon gift cards or buy things off someone's Amazon wishlist.
- derefr 11y agoPatreon's innovation was the "monthly recurring donation." That's basically what this is as well. So one could say it's a direct competitor.
- Brian-Puccio 11y agoYeah, that's the first thing I thought of ... seekingarrangement.com sorts of deals.
- blumkvist 11y agoand stream hunnies.
- allworknoplay 11y agonot sure I even wanna know the difference between a cam girl and a 'stream hunny' O.o
- blumkvist 11y agoStream hunnies are cam girls for geeks. They pretend to stream games while flirting with teenage boys ans soliciting donations. Groupies for the modern times we live in, if you wish.
- ilaksh 11y agoJeff Bezos, the world's newest, and wealthiest, pimp.
- valgaze 11y agoThis is an interesting payments case b/c with kiddos in the United States you need to deal with the Children's Online Privacy Act (ie the reason for the "are you 13 years or older" checkbox question) One firm that's was trying to do kid payments was Virtual Piggy (now Oink): http://www.oink.com http://www.oink.com
- derefr 11y ago> the reason for the "are you 13 years or older" checkbox question I thought all the age-of-13 stuff, specifically, was because you can't legally enter yourself into a contract when you're younger than 13. Which is to say, you can't accept EULAs or Terms of Service (or you can, but they'll have no legal force.)
- mikeash 11y agoObviously it depends on the jurisdiction, but typically minors cannot enter legally binding contracts. Some form of source: http://www.lawchek.com/Library1/_books/contract/qanda/legalage.htm http://www.lawchek.com/Library1/_books/contract/qanda/legala... One interesting feature I wasn't aware of is that this does not generally apply to "necessities" or employment contracts.
- Buge 11y agoIt's COPPA. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Children%27s_Online_Privacy_Protection_Act https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Children%27s_Online_Privacy_Pr... Some people even consider COPPA to be a form of censorship. It creates such a huge legal burden on websites if they allow < 13 year olds, that most websites have to ban them, thus limiting their right to speech.
- AntsInMyEyes 11y agoI think kids away at college, especially for freshman year could be another use case. Parents know they are smart enough they probably could make the right financial choices, but just being a freshman in college means they probably won't.
- superuser2 11y agoIf you give teenagers cash, they can't spend it online. Thanks to KYC rules and bank policies, you have to be 18 to get anything that looks like a credit card. Best plan for teenagers is a joint checking account (dedicated to the child's use) at your bank, with a debit card they can use for day-to-day spending. You can do allowance, etc with transfers, and most bankd will play ball as long as one person on the account (the parent) is 18.
- w1ntermute 11y ago> If you give teenagers cash, they can't spend it online. Thanks to KYC rules and bank policies, you have to be 18 to get anything that looks like a credit card. What about those prepaid cards you can buy for cash at B&M stores? I'm pretty sure you can use those online.
- gotrecruit 11y agosometimes those cards don't work for some online stores because there is no address associated with the card, so card verification systems may fail.
- pki 11y agomany online stores i've seen/used actively block those cards due to fraud/chargeback/etc reasons
- derefr 11y agoEvery time I've bought one of those cards, it has me go to a website to register/activate it (set a PIN, associate it with my email address+password, and most importantly, assign it an address and phone number) before it'll work.
- mafuyu 11y agoThat's what I used in high school, but they're not very good value. You'd often need to pay a few bucks in fees just to use a $20 prepaid Visa card.
- 11y ago
- efsavage 11y agoLife lessons aside, it's alot harder to spend your $20/week on weed or booze or gambling when it's an Amazon credit.
- ytdht 11y agoyou can always sell it for 80%+ of it's value for cash or bitcoins... or ask your dealer what he needs from Amazon
- jusben1369 11y agoI wonder if it's solving for my problem where my kids buy a lot of video on demand. I'd like to cap that for each of them each month. It wouldn't hurt if it also was funds they could then use to replace the iPhone charger they break or lose each month.