Amazon releases Amazon Coins... reactions?

TTBit

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Quote from: casascius on February 06, 2013, 12:50:30 PM

Maybe Amazon has future plans to let you buy a limited selection of intangible products with bitcoins and is using this as a buffer so if they run into legal trouble. So you could buy amazon coins with BTC. In event of legal snags they can isolate and "throw out amazon coins" and BTC with the bath water, but if it takes off and establishes legitimacy, they can simply expand it to be useful for all goods and have a head start on the market!

When you're a company concerned that you'll be enabling all kinds of horrible things by giving people a way for people to turn anonymous illegally-gotten money into goods and services, it sounds far less sinister when the only things you're allowing people to buy are intangible copies of intellectual property items that the evil people of the world could arguably just pirate anyway. When you're taking bitcoins for music, movies, and e-books, it's hard for someone to argue you're helping black-hat criminals, because these criminals don't pay for these in the first place, right? They jailbreak, crack, torrent, and pirate music and books. It's mind numbingly brilliant if this has anything to do with Amazon's future plans to differentiate themselves as innovators.

I like it. Amazon grants power to an amazon subsidiary to issue amazon coins. This subsidiary deals with the banking part. Legal problems would not be on amazon.

Rassah

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Quote from: ShadowOfHarbringer on February 13, 2013, 09:05:56 AM

I think that this situation is quite useful for Bitcoin for 2 reasons.

1. It disperses attention of governments & banks so that they now will have go after 2 targets.
2. It may pave the way for all alternative currencies into the current system

I wonder if Amazon will take this "coin thing" further, making it a real currency, not just a gift card system.

1. Amazon's thing is no different from iTunes credits, Facebook credits, or Xbox Live points. There are plenty of non-targets out there, but Bitcoin is completely unique, still being a target all on it's own.
2. Amazon's thing is not a currency. Unless Amazon does something drastic, I doubt this will pave the way for anything, any more than Xbox points did. The closest privately owned currency that Bitcoin comes to is SecondLife's Linden dollars, and those got slapped with so much regulations that they never got a chance to pave the way to anything.

ShadowOfHarbringer

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I think that this situation is quite useful for Bitcoin for 2 reasons.

1. It disperses attention of governments & banks so that they now will have go after 2 targets.
2. It may pave the way for all alternative currencies into the current system

I wonder if Amazon will take this "coin thing" further, making it a real currency, not just a gift card system.

bowen151

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Caveat Emptor

How great would it be if it was an acutal cryptocoin with all the bells and whistles ( and flaws )...: 51% anyone?

I like that they have called them amazon coins, im surprised they havent implemented something along these lines a bit sooner though!

Mike Christ

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On a similar note, I got a gift card to Target last Christmas. I traded it to a friend who was nice enough to take it off my hands for as much as it's worth. I don't shop at Target much, but I guess he does.

I believe amazon coin will work about the same way. Apparently it's mostly for Kindle. As long as you can trade it between Kindle owners, it can definitely be used alongside Bitcoin. Swap out coin for coin.

ShadowOfHarbringer

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Quote from: RodeoX on February 08, 2013, 04:10:00 PM

Quote from: Rassah on February 08, 2013, 04:07:27 PM

Quote from: RodeoX on February 08, 2013, 11:55:09 AM

We should bum rush Amazon with emails about why they use Amazon Coins, but not bitcoin. I do buy stuff from Amazon, but if they took BTC, they would make it my primary shopping site.

No we shouldn't. The customer base of bitcoin users is still WAAAAAAAY too tiny for them to give a fuck. Plus they'll be in the business of selling AmazonCoins themselves directly. For them to use Bitcoin, they would have to consider how to sell it themselves, and somehow I don't think Amazon has interest in being in the exchange business.

My message to Amazon is... You can use BTC or not. I will be using bitcoin regardless of your decision.

Who cares ? I don't know, but i know that Amazon doesn't.

Rassah

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Quote from: RodeoX on February 08, 2013, 04:10:00 PM

Quote from: Rassah on February 08, 2013, 04:07:27 PM

Quote from: RodeoX on February 08, 2013, 11:55:09 AM

We should bum rush Amazon with emails about why they use Amazon Coins, but not bitcoin. I do buy stuff from Amazon, but if they took BTC, they would make it my primary shopping site.

No we shouldn't. The customer base of bitcoin users is still WAAAAAAAY too tiny for them to give a fuck. Plus they'll be in the business of selling AmazonCoins themselves directly. For them to use Bitcoin, they would have to consider how to sell it themselves, and somehow I don't think Amazon has interest in being in the exchange business.

My message to Amazon is... You can use BTC or not. I will be using bitcoin regardless of your decision.

Their message will be something like, "who the f are you, and why should we care?"

I'm not saying it's a bad idea, ever, it's just that we are still nowhere near that point in Bitcoin's acceptance. Hell, we're still waiting for the software to actually be user friendly. Maybe in a year we'll be there.

RodeoX

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Quote from: Rassah on February 08, 2013, 04:07:27 PM

Quote from: RodeoX on February 08, 2013, 11:55:09 AM

We should bum rush Amazon with emails about why they use Amazon Coins, but not bitcoin. I do buy stuff from Amazon, but if they took BTC, they would make it my primary shopping site.

No we shouldn't. The customer base of bitcoin users is still WAAAAAAAY too tiny for them to give a fuck. Plus they'll be in the business of selling AmazonCoins themselves directly. For them to use Bitcoin, they would have to consider how to sell it themselves, and somehow I don't think Amazon has interest in being in the exchange business.

My message to Amazon is... You can use BTC or not. I will be using bitcoin regardless of your decision.

Rassah

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Quote from: RodeoX on February 08, 2013, 11:55:09 AM

We should bum rush Amazon with emails about why they use Amazon Coins, but not bitcoin. I do buy stuff from Amazon, but if they took BTC, they would make it my primary shopping site.

No we shouldn't. The customer base of bitcoin users is still WAAAAAAAY too tiny for them to give a fuck. Plus they'll be in the business of selling AmazonCoins themselves directly. For them to use Bitcoin, they would have to consider how to sell it themselves, and somehow I don't think Amazon has interest in being in the exchange business.

RodeoX

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The revolution will be monetized!

We should bum rush Amazon with emails about why they use Amazon Coins, but not bitcoin. I do buy stuff from Amazon, but if they took BTC, they would make it my primary shopping site.

ShadowOfHarbringer

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Quote from: sounds on February 08, 2013, 07:29:51 AM

Just because a company starts offering something and uses the word "coin," it's definitely not bitcoin.
They just want to ride the vibe. Bitcoin is cool, why not call our product "coin" too?

Yep, so much fuss for nothing. It's just some giftcard-like nonsense, not coin of any sort.

sounds

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1221iZanNi5igK7oAA7AWmYjpsyjsRbLLZ

Just because a company starts offering something and uses the word "coin," it's definitely not bitcoin.

They just want to ride the vibe. Bitcoin is cool, why not call our product "coin" too?

Monster Tent

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Quote from: casascius on February 06, 2013, 12:50:30 PM

Maybe Amazon has future plans to let you buy a limited selection of intangible products with bitcoins and is using this as a buffer so if they run into legal trouble. So you could buy amazon coins with BTC. In event of legal snags they can isolate and "throw out amazon coins" and BTC with the bath water, but if it takes off and establishes legitimacy, they can simply expand it to be useful for all goods and have a head start on the market!

When you're a company concerned that you'll be enabling all kinds of horrible things by giving people a way for people to turn anonymous illegally-gotten money into goods and services, it sounds far less sinister when the only things you're allowing people to buy are intangible copies of intellectual property items that the evil people of the world could arguably just pirate anyway. When you're taking bitcoins for music, movies, and e-books, it's hard for someone to argue you're helping black-hat criminals, because these criminals don't pay for these in the first place, right? They jailbreak, crack, torrent, and pirate music and books. It's mind numbingly brilliant if this has anything to do with Amazon's future plans to differentiate themselves as innovators.

This could very well be in the long term plans. Both Google and Amazon are laying the foundation for the digital currency revolution thats coming. Its a short step from google wallet to google coins for example.

b!z

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It's just a sort of 'points' system, it doesn't seem related to Bitcoin in any way.

paultramarine

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Looks like Amazon is doing this to build customer loyalty and a strong app base (while taking advantage of the below-inflation rates of debt): http://www.slate.com/articles/technology/technology/2013/02/amazon_coins_jeff_bezos_brilliant_plan_to_give_free_money_to_kindle_fire.html

Regardless of the fact that the only things Amazon coins have in common with bitcoin are being digital and called 'coins', it probably is a good thing for bitcoin as the name and concept of a digital currency be more familiar when people learn about it in the future.

TheButterZone

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Quote from: Ari on February 06, 2013, 04:51:54 PM

Quote from: Rassah on February 06, 2013, 12:36:21 PM

That would require them to convince, or maybe even force, people to buy these coins, as opposed to just buying things with a credit card using the one-click purchase feature they have now. I can't see how they could convince people to use the more convoluted method, and switching to ONLY accepting coins for all purchases will likely piss off a lot of customers. Their Amazon Appstore is not really in a powerful position for that, though. Sure, people who only have Kindles are forced to use it, but there are plenty of other alternatives to the Kindle that have the same size screens, better hardware, and actually cost less, while having full access to Google's app store AND Amazoon's Kindle app (e.g. Nexus). I'll be curious to see how they force this weirdness on their customers.

The press release states that they will be giving away free coins. So there will be some sort of discount or bonus for using amazon coins.

Quote from: Rassah on February 06, 2013, 12:36:21 PM

At least gift cards you can actually gift. From what I understand, these coins will not be transferable. So I guess the gift would be to Amazon, who gets to take more of your money Cheesy

If it's like their current gift card system, it will be giftable upon initial purchase, but not transferable again.

I think the workaround is that you give someone a gift card, they apply it to their account, they send MP3s as a gift, spending the credit out of their account, and the recipient of the MP3 requests it be converted to credit rather than downloading the MP3.

philips

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Quote from: casascius on February 06, 2013, 12:50:30 PM

these criminals don't pay for these in the first place, right? They jailbreak, crack, torrent, and pirate music and books.

Good God, I am a criminal! Shocked

Ari

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Quote from: Rassah on February 06, 2013, 12:36:21 PM

That would require them to convince, or maybe even force, people to buy these coins, as opposed to just buying things with a credit card using the one-click purchase feature they have now. I can't see how they could convince people to use the more convoluted method, and switching to ONLY accepting coins for all purchases will likely piss off a lot of customers. Their Amazon Appstore is not really in a powerful position for that, though. Sure, people who only have Kindles are forced to use it, but there are plenty of other alternatives to the Kindle that have the same size screens, better hardware, and actually cost less, while having full access to Google's app store AND Amazoon's Kindle app (e.g. Nexus). I'll be curious to see how they force this weirdness on their customers.

The press release states that they will be giving away free coins. So there will be some sort of discount or bonus for using amazon coins.

Quote from: Rassah on February 06, 2013, 12:36:21 PM

At least gift cards you can actually gift. From what I understand, these coins will not be transferable. So I guess the gift would be to Amazon, who gets to take more of your money Cheesy

If it's like their current gift card system, it will be giftable upon initial purchase, but not transferable again.

casascius

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The Casascius 1oz 10BTC Silver Round (w/ Gold B)

Maybe Amazon has future plans to let you buy a limited selection of intangible products with bitcoins and is using this as a buffer so if they run into legal trouble. So you could buy amazon coins with BTC. In event of legal snags they can isolate and "throw out amazon coins" and BTC with the bath water, but if it takes off and establishes legitimacy, they can simply expand it to be useful for all goods and have a head start on the market!

When you're a company concerned that you'll be enabling all kinds of horrible things by giving people a way for people to turn anonymous illegally-gotten money into goods and services, it sounds far less sinister when the only things you're allowing people to buy are intangible copies of intellectual property items that the evil people of the world could arguably just pirate anyway. When you're taking bitcoins for music, movies, and e-books, it's hard for someone to argue you're helping black-hat criminals, because these criminals don't pay for these in the first place, right? They jailbreak, crack, torrent, and pirate music and books. It's mind numbingly brilliant if this has anything to do with Amazon's future plans to differentiate themselves as innovators.

Rassah

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Quote from: Ari on February 06, 2013, 08:13:58 AM

They do it to save on credit card fees. Since there's a fixed cost per transaction, small payments of less than a dollar are not cost-effective. If they can get people to buy $20 worth of Amazon Coins at once, it saves them money. It's the same idea behind xbox points.

That would require them to convince, or maybe even force, people to buy these coins, as opposed to just buying things with a credit card using the one-click purchase feature they have now. I can't see how they could convince people to use the more convoluted method, and switching to ONLY accepting coins for all purchases will likely piss off a lot of customers. Their Amazon Appstore is not really in a powerful position for that, though. Sure, people who only have Kindles are forced to use it, but there are plenty of other alternatives to the Kindle that have the same size screens, better hardware, and actually cost less, while having full access to Google's app store AND Amazoon's Kindle app (e.g. Nexus). I'll be curious to see how they force this weirdness on their customers.

Quote from: grantbdev on February 05, 2013, 07:16:17 PM

I don't think this is a currency...it's just a gift card system really...

At least gift cards you can actually gift. From what I understand, these coins will not be transferable. So I guess the gift would be to Amazon, who gets to take more of your money Cheesy

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