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Jonathan's Card

jonathanstark.com

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Re: Jonathan's Card

#161

Post by awj »

gabrielroth wrote: post #60
Daniel14 wrote: post #50

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You could say that about almost anything. "How can you justify commenting on HN, when the money earned in the equivalent amount of time wasted here could save n Nigerians from starvation?" You can't, not really. But Jonathan's card still is one of the more ethical ways of spending money, so I'm all for it.

I comment on HN because I enjoy it. But I suspect that some people add money to Jonathan's Card because it gives them a feeling of virtue. I'd like to interfere with that feeling.

> I'd like to interfere with that feeling.

Honestly, why? You can't scold everyone into "real" virtuous behavior, so why not give them a taste of what it feels like and see if they can get hooked?

Do you believe that people putting money on this card would actually donate it towards a more deserving end?

I (think I) understand your goal here, but ultimately I think what you're doing is either ineffective in or outright harmful towards achieving it.

Re: Jonathan's Card

#162

Post by startupfounder »

Sam_Odio wrote: post #147
eggbrain wrote: post #96

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.

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/ . That would imply that the card is currently being used as intended.

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.

Re: Jonathan's Card

#163

Post by brianleb »

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.

Re: Jonathan's Card

#165

Post by jonathanstark »

brianleb wrote: post #163

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 ap…

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

Re: Jonathan's Card

#166

Post by jonathanstark »

hammock wrote: post #149
eggbrain wrote: post #96

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.

I'm trying to figure out- what's the difference between loading the card and just dropping $10 on the ground?

Please try both and share your findings with the group.

Re: Jonathan's Card

#167

Post by jonathanstark »

hassanhassan wrote: post #94
funthree wrote: post #87

Potentially abusive use shown in these tweets. http://twitter.com/#!/jonathanscard/status/10034749918897766... http://twitter.com/#!/jonathanscard/status/10034674284272844... http://twitter.com/#!/jonathanscard/status/10034195955777536... Edit: Any ideas? Edit: It just happened again... http://twitter.com/#!/jonathanscard/status/10035604975584460... Edit: More... http://twitter.com/#!/jonathanscard/status/10036286052…

Something does sound fishy. I wonder why someone would ruin the fun for everyone involved.

Jonathan here:

The beauty of this is that one person can't ruin the fun for everyone involved. Call me a hopeless romantic, but I think people who don't get the concept are in the minority. Their behavior will be overrun 100x by people who do get the concept.

We'll see what happens soon enough... j

Re: Jonathan's Card

#168

Post by jonathanstark »

pangram wrote: post #4

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 (…

Jonathan here:

Thanks for your input, and perhaps for paying my bridge toll ;)

You wrote:

"Unfortunately it's one of those things where one anonymous bad egg will ruin it for everyone else. Some way to restrict it to a community with less anonymity would help."

I see where you're coming from, but I believe that A) nobody (with the possible exception of Starbucks) can ruin this, and B) the solution to the bad egg problem is to be more open, not more controlling.

Stay tuned... j

Re: Jonathan's Card

#169

Post by jonathanstark »

Cushman wrote: post #150
jonathanstark wrote: post #148

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Thanks for your feedback! Your suggestion is a good one and something that I've been considering. It is possible to reload one sbux card from another, so I was thinking about using one for deposit only and dribbling the balance into the purchase card at $20 per hour or similar. I think there's something about this that would ruin the excitement so I'm working on different approach at the moment. Not sure where it'll…

Yeah, I was thinking about that too. One thought I had (which others have suggested) is to encourage people to donate in small amounts— rather than drop $25 on the card if you're feeling generous, you should drop $5 on it each morning for a week. But since that's kind of a hassle, then you'd whip up a quick app that lets people easily amortize a larger contribution over a series of coffee-scale contributions. Connect…

The thing that scares me about this idea is the effect it would have on the donor if they didn't see their donation reflected immediately in the feed. Not only is it less exciting, but it potentially opens up questions about where the money is in the meantime.

I will strenuously avoid this turning into anything resembling a bank - it needs to be more like a "take a penny, leave a penny" tray sitting on a Starbucks counter. If someone want to be a jerk and empty the tray into his pocket, so be it. They're just a jerk who I'm sure will get what they deserve in life.

Fingers crossed, j

Re: Jonathan's Card

#170

Post by rodh257 »

jonathanstark wrote: post #148
Cushman wrote: post #142

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Can you put spending limits on a card? Or disable it entirely? What I'm wondering is if you can have a deposit-only card, which transfers funds to the live card to keep it topped up at $10. Downside is some people have to wait an extra minute or two for free coffee; upside is someone trying to clean out the account has to spread it over a bunch of transactions, which even if it doesn't stop everyone probably raises t…

Thanks for your feedback! Your suggestion is a good one and something that I've been considering. It is possible to reload one sbux card from another, so I was thinking about using one for deposit only and dribbling the balance into the purchase card at $20 per hour or similar. I think there's something about this that would ruin the excitement so I'm working on different approach at the moment. Not sure where it'll…

Perhaps use your API to determine when the card is less than $20 and add money to it then (rather than hourly rate), that way these big purchases can't be made?
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