61–70 of 132 posts
Why not ask for 50 cents or a new stamp in the envelope? Including a stamp is easier in an envelope, and it should make prepping a return envelope simpler. Require "forever" stamps to protect yourself from a postal price hike.
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This is an Internet age Ponzi scheme.
Not really; while it does use some of its mechanisms, it lacks the crucial one: recursion.
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A ponzi scheme would require a larger upfront sticker investment from new investors with large but unsustainable sticker returns over time. This is just a straight up 'sticker + $.50' for 2 stickers exchange.
I thought that a Ponzi scheme was simply one where returns to existing investors are paid from the capital contributed by new investors.
If you give the returns immediately (the two stickers) with no option to reinvest, the ponzi scheme is going to run out of steam very quickly and there's no way this is going to attract a lot of people.
In summary, this is a Ponzi Scheme, but not one that has a lot of chance of being sustained for very long.
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Not common to see the top story on HN have 0 comments, as it did when I loaded the page ...
Honestly not sure. I've never had a post rise this quickly, though it's definitely fun to watch! Here's a screenshot of where people are visiting from: https://i.imgur.com/Of5xKOk.png
I would love to do this with startup / event t-shirts so I could (eventually) clean out my drawers...too bad sizing clothes is a little more complicated than stickers.
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Take a percentage cut of the stickers (or postage cost)
Weeeeelll...if postage is 49 cents and people mail in 50 cents, that's your immense profit opportunity right there ;)
Why not ask for 50 cents or a new stamp in the envelope? Including a stamp is easier in an envelope, and it should make prepping a return envelope simpler. Require "forever" stamps to protect yourself from a postal price hike.
Ah, we should update the website! If you send us a forever stamp instead of 50 cents, we'll honor it.
(And as general advice, if you're going to do a mail campaign like this in the future, it might be a good idea to actually chat to a postal carrier about it first.)
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Ah, we should update the website! If you send us a forever stamp instead of 50 cents, we'll honor it.
You should let people know not to send coins, too. Coins can get violently ejected from postal sorting machines and cause injuries. (And as general advice, if you're going to do a mail campaign like this in the future, it might be a good idea to actually chat to a postal carrier about it first.)
I actually know someone who has worked on those machines for decades. He never told me anything other than that the machines might reject your letter, or your thumb drive might fall out and they'd not be able to find where to send it.
Which of the examples is considered to be a "startup"? The featured one is a 15-year-old spinoff of a public company with hundreds of millions of dollars in revenue. The second one is an actual public company with 4000 employees. The third one might be sort of a startup, but they have over 100 million dollars in VC backing.