I’m really sick of having to buy funny money everywhere I go.
I feel scammed when services require me to buy a “six dollar unit” by making me pay them ten dollars. It is worse when you have to buy in awkward numbers – $6 / SNES game, units purchased only in $10 chunks.
I mean, what the hell? I often wonder why more people aren’t annoyed by it. I didn’t ask to be obligated to buy even more things – If I’m at iStockphoto and I want ONE image that is supposed to cost 4 dollars, I DO NOT WANT TO SPEND THIRTEEN.
I am then obligated to try to get the most I can out of my money by buying other things, and will inevitably come to the point where I have one point left and can either purchase more so it isn’t left on the table, or count my losses and admit the thing actually cost me more than it was advertised for.
When using systems like this, I feel like I’m playing a game I can’t win – like if I ever get to the point of spending to exactly zero “TradeDollarsTM” I should exultantly pump my fist and never, ever buy points again.
It depends on the particular system. For things like iStockPhoto and Xbox Live, points make it so that credit card and similar fees don’t eat them alive. Not the best arrangement for us, but perhaps it saves us some money in the long run. I’m less sanguine on barter exchanges like TradeDollars. It seems like an inherently inflationary system. You don’t earn interest on funds you collect, and those funds are worth a little less every time they’re spent (as the barter exchange takes out its fee in one form or another).
Er, I’ve not heard of TradeDollars as such, I made it up.
Actually, I have zero sympathy on the issue of credit card fees – it is clear that the fees have been restructured for high-quantity low-rate purchases, or Taco Bell would never have allowed credit card transactions (nor any other fast food chain). If I can pay .79 cents for a taco without them blinking an eye, I think the profit margin of a 4.00 game that was automagically translated from NES is secure.
Same with iStockphoto, their incremental costs are incredibly miniscule – the cost of storage space and transmission of an image compared to the costs they’re charging are almost nothing.
Ah. Well, TradeDollars is, indeed, the name of yet another barter exchange outfit. I don’t quite know how Taco Bell manages the way they do. My local comic shop makes a point of asking us to combine purchases, because credit card fees cost them so much.
The credit card companies charge the fast-food outlets less in part because the quantities are so large the ccc’s can take a lesser percentage hit, and because the ffo’s are low-risk. I mean when is the last time you heard about a charge-back for a BigMac? Also, the ffo’s build the price fo the transaction into the cost fo the meal.
The comic shop has fixed costs and even more fixed prices, I’m sure on the indie comics they have to eat their dogs. Add to that that often mom-and-pops are stuck with insane merchant account credit-card processing. The difference in profit between using credit cards and cash is often measured in dollars.
I hit zero balance after buying everything I wanted once on XBLA. I should have taken a picture.
Next time you want to ™, try ™
k?
No, scream and yell, because it’s FALSE ADVERTISING and LYING ABOUT THE REAL PRICE and I think they should all be shot for it, or at the very least forced to pay you back for any of their stupid funny money that you don’t use.
::grumbles heartily::