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Amazon Allowance

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Re: Amazon Allowance

#51

Post by derefr »

gotrecruit wrote: post #30
w1ntermute wrote: post #26

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> 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.

sometimes those cards don't work for some online stores because there is no address associated with the card, so card verification systems may fail.

Every 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.

Re: Amazon Allowance

#52

Post by hiddencost »

nlake44 wrote: post #49

I don't understand how Amazon can afford to maintain so many projects given their revenue is so low ( https://finance.yahoo.com/q/is?s=AMZN&annual ). Someone care to explain?

90 billion is low? Or are you talking about income? They can afford so many projects because they're making an enormous amount of money and shoveling it all back into these projects.

Re: Amazon Allowance

#53

Post by derefr »

valgaze wrote: post #17
olympus wrote: post #2

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…

This 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

> 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.)

Re: Amazon Allowance

#54

Post by derefr »

mentat wrote: post #41
dc-tech-fan wrote: post #21

I want this for something like Fiverr. Instead of my kids accumulating more junk, they learn the skills of hiring and delegating. Don't want to mow the lawn in this heat? Use your allowance to somebody else to do it. As long as the job is done they will earn their allowance. I just need a way to make sure they're not outsourcing their homework or paying somebody buy them alcohol.

I find this disturbing in a way I can't quite quantify. Kids should do things, not just appear to do things because they're clever about outsourcing to someone worse off.

Hiring and managing someone else, while being the point-of-contact with your clients, is doing a thing; it's a very useful life-skill, in fact. There are other useful life-skills they might be better off not delegating away the learning opportunities for, of course, but usually "chores" are less learning experiences and more "I used to do this thing, but now you're old enough to take the load off me."

Of course, if there's no life-lesson, why not just cut out the middle-man and have a local chore marketplace where kids from all around the neighbourhood can directly bid on the contract to mow your lawn. (Mostly kidding, but that'd be somewhat interesting for people who don't have kids, and don't need a full-on gardener.)

Re: Amazon Allowance

#55

Post by hobarrera »

dc-tech-fan wrote: post #21

I want this for something like Fiverr. Instead of my kids accumulating more junk, they learn the skills of hiring and delegating. Don't want to mow the lawn in this heat? Use your allowance to somebody else to do it. As long as the job is done they will earn their allowance. I just need a way to make sure they're not outsourcing their homework or paying somebody buy them alcohol.

Lesson learnt by kid: Money is all that matter. Never bother with anything else.

Re: Amazon Allowance

#56

Post by taeric »

codeonfire wrote: post #45
robotresearcher wrote: post #44

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Previous poster meant that the dollars saved via the discount could be used to purchase prime.

Yes if you buy $1000 of merchandise, you will end up spending $900 and then you can buy prime with the $100 you saved. However, you have to buy the $1000 of merchandise first. In reality that $100 is eaten by sales tax since if you work at Amazon you are going to be in a state where they have tax nexus.

I'm torn. On the one hand, I applaud you for not treating $1,000 in merchandise as a given. On the other... this just feels like an entitlement argument. It is just $100 we are talking about. For benefits that, if you use them, are almost certainly worth more than that.

Re: Amazon Allowance

#57

Post by chrsstrm »

derefr wrote: post #54
mentat wrote: post #41

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I find this disturbing in a way I can't quite quantify. Kids should do things, not just appear to do things because they're clever about outsourcing to someone worse off.

Hiring and managing someone else, while being the point-of-contact with your clients, is doing a thing; it's a very useful life-skill, in fact. There are other useful life-skills they might be better off not delegating away the learning opportunities for, of course, but usually "chores" are less learning experiences and more "I used to do this thing, but now you're old enough to take the load off me." Of course, if t…

Here's a little life lesson that was kicked down to me:

"Don't ever ask/command/order someone to do something that you would not do yourself."

Interpret how you like, but to me it means, "Get your hands dirty and appreciate what it takes to do a job before you delegate."

Re: Amazon Allowance

#59

Post by mikeash »

derefr wrote: post #53
valgaze wrote: post #17

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This 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

> 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.)

Obviously 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/legala...

One interesting feature I wasn't aware of is that this does not generally apply to "necessities" or employment contracts.

Re: Amazon Allowance

#60

Post by mikeash »

taeric wrote: post #56
codeonfire wrote: post #45

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Yes if you buy $1000 of merchandise, you will end up spending $900 and then you can buy prime with the $100 you saved. However, you have to buy the $1000 of merchandise first. In reality that $100 is eaten by sales tax since if you work at Amazon you are going to be in a state where they have tax nexus.

I'm torn. On the one hand, I applaud you for not treating $1,000 in merchandise as a given. On the other... this just feels like an entitlement argument. It is just $100 we are talking about. For benefits that, if you use them, are almost certainly worth more than that.

On one hand, $100 is small potatoes and employees shouldn't care that much.

On the other hand, people are often irrational and do care that much. Which makes it kind of weird that Amazon doesn't provide free Prime to their employees, because that $100 value (and what's their actual cost?) probably buys a lot more than $100 of employee satisfaction.

So while I certainly wouldn't say that Amazon is somehow mistreating their workers by not giving them this stuff, I do think it's kind of weird that they don't.

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