Pepsi’s $32B Typo Caused Deadly Riots • Hacker News Board

Re: Pepsi’s $32B Typo Caused Deadly Riots

#141

Post by nickff » Thu, Jun 11, 2020, 6:59 PM UTC

snowwrestler wrote: post #132

Aloha wrote: post #112

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I've always looked at it this way "things must be pretty bad if lighting yourself on fire sounds like a better alternative then living" I dont need to understand the particulars beyond that.

I think there are two ways to approach thinking about dramatic acts like self-immolation, rioting, looting, stealing, etc. One way is to think "wow, those people have had very different experiences from me, to drive them to do that." I'd put your reply in that category and I prefer this. It recognizes shared commonality among people, which is a good place to start for constructive change. The other way is to think "w…

I think you've hit on a very interesting way of framing the issue. Perhaps it can be explained with (slightly) statistical language:

- Taking the self-immolator's experiences and actions as sample sets, they are different from the 'stereotypical American' by a statistically significant margin.

- This does not mean that the cause is that the self-immolator is categorically different from the 'stereotypical American' (because correlation does not necessarily imply causation), in fact, it suggests that the experiences and actions may be related.

Re: Pepsi’s $32B Typo Caused Deadly Riots

#142

Post by StupidPeople » Thu, Jun 11, 2020, 6:59 PM UTC

austincheney wrote: post #105

Having lived for some time in a third world country that has real poverty and real day to day security worries, situations like this spring to mind when people completely without optics compare their situations to those in developing nations. Yes, as insanely ignorant as that sounds it happens. People here on HN last week, as one example, were trying to compare their experiences recently protesting to the Arab Spring…

Maybe they are poor because they are insane. Would you ever hire someone who participated in a riot?

Re: Pepsi’s $32B Typo Caused Deadly Riots

#143

Post by nitrogen » Thu, Jun 11, 2020, 7:00 PM UTC

heavenlyblue wrote: post #131

nitrogen wrote: post #120

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I honestly think that there are people in the US who feel distraught enough to do so, but they know that it wouldn't do any good for anyone else -- they would be ignored, or labeled as "crazy". No doubt life in the US is still much better than many other places, but we have to remember that protest itself has been systematically marginalized and penalized as a form of expression, and adjust our evaluation of the stat…

Are you saying that burning yourself during Arab Spring has better hope for success than in the US?

We have clear evidence that it did.

Re: Pepsi’s $32B Typo Caused Deadly Riots

#144

Post by StupidPeople » Thu, Jun 11, 2020, 7:03 PM UTC

Hey, rioting idiots are the same around the world. Don't give me money? I'll burn my neighborhood down.

Re: Pepsi’s $32B Typo Caused Deadly Riots

#145

Post by [deleted] » Thu, Jun 11, 2020, 7:04 PM UTC

snowwrestler wrote: post #132

Aloha wrote: post #112

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I've always looked at it this way "things must be pretty bad if lighting yourself on fire sounds like a better alternative then living" I dont need to understand the particulars beyond that.

I think there are two ways to approach thinking about dramatic acts like self-immolation, rioting, looting, stealing, etc. One way is to think "wow, those people have had very different experiences from me, to drive them to do that." I'd put your reply in that category and I prefer this. It recognizes shared commonality among people, which is a good place to start for constructive change. The other way is to think "w…

[deleted]

Re: Pepsi’s $32B Typo Caused Deadly Riots

#146

Post by dane-pgp » Thu, Jun 11, 2020, 7:06 PM UTC

asutekku wrote: post #80

petters wrote: post #63

> The number “349” was the $40,000 winning number. > Pepsi had explicitly told its vendor factories not to print this number at all. Sounds dangerous to decide the winning number in advance. Makes it easier for a vendor or someone else to cheat. But I suppose they wanted short numbers.

How else would you define there to be only two winning numbers then? If you define the winning number afterwards, there’s no way telling how many numbers of those would’ve been in circulation.

Perhaps they should have instructed the manufacturers to not include numbers which were multiples of, say, 15, but to use all other numbers uniformly.

Random audits (with expensive penalties) could have detected whether the manufacturers had complied with this, without making it too obvious to contestants that the winning number would be a multiple of 15.

The winning bottles could then be manufactured to contain some specific multiple of 15, while still allowing the organisers some freedom to choose which one.

Re: Pepsi’s $32B Typo Caused Deadly Riots

#147

Post by tedunangst » Thu, Jun 11, 2020, 7:09 PM UTC

azinman2 wrote: post #134

danso wrote: post #92

The Mental Floss writeup from 2018 has actual details: https://www.mentalfloss.com/article/558202/pepsi-number-feve... > To determine winning numbers, Pepsi recruited D.G. Consultores, a marketing firm based in Mexico. The numbers were generated via computer, then secured in a safe deposit box in Manila. From there, the list would be used to “seed” bottle caps in the bottling plants. Each night, the company would ann…

10M is nothing to Pepsi with a market cap of 178B. If they're going to put something out as a token, they could have easily 10-20x'd that and had a much more meaningful payout.

Pepsi didn't have a market cap of 178B in 1992. As if market cap is even relevant.

Re: Pepsi’s $32B Typo Caused Deadly Riots

#148

Post by Arcuru » Thu, Jun 11, 2020, 7:10 PM UTC

azinman2 wrote: post #134

danso wrote: post #92

The Mental Floss writeup from 2018 has actual details: https://www.mentalfloss.com/article/558202/pepsi-number-feve... > To determine winning numbers, Pepsi recruited D.G. Consultores, a marketing firm based in Mexico. The numbers were generated via computer, then secured in a safe deposit box in Manila. From there, the list would be used to “seed” bottle caps in the bottling plants. Each night, the company would ann…

10M is nothing to Pepsi with a market cap of 178B. If they're going to put something out as a token, they could have easily 10-20x'd that and had a much more meaningful payout.

Your point still stands, but their market cap in May of 1992 when this happened was around 18B.

Re: Pepsi’s $32B Typo Caused Deadly Riots

#149

Post by martingordon » Thu, Jun 11, 2020, 7:28 PM UTC

This reminds me of the “free iTunes song” promotion Apple and Pepsi ran in ~2005. Some Pepsi bottles had codes under the bottle cap that could be redeemed for a free song; non-winning caps just said “Sorry Try Again”.

The mistake Pepsi made was that you could actually make out whether a bottle had a winning or losing cap by looking into the bottle without having to open it (https://methodshop.com/2005/02/hacking-pepsis-itunes-giveawa...).

You still had to buy the soda to get the free song, but if you’re going to drink soda anyway, spending a minute or two picking a bottle with a free song gave you a nice little bonus.

Re: Pepsi’s $32B Typo Caused Deadly Riots

#150

Post by londons_explore » Thu, Jun 11, 2020, 7:36 PM UTC

martingordon wrote: post #149

This reminds me of the “free iTunes song” promotion Apple and Pepsi ran in ~2005. Some Pepsi bottles had codes under the bottle cap that could be redeemed for a free song; non-winning caps just said “Sorry Try Again”. The mistake Pepsi made was that you could actually make out whether a bottle had a winning or losing cap by looking into the bottle without having to open it ( https://methodshop.com/2005/02/hacking-pep…

I mean that might have been deliberate... News of how to "cheat" becomes free marketing.