[javajosh]

I want gift cards banned not because of scammers. Like pay-day loan services, gift cards are based on the fraud of profound information asymmetry. Gift cards make liquid cash worse in almost every dimension. It's tied to one supplier. It can be lost. I forgot the stats, but I'm positive billions spent on gift cards are never redeemed.

Gift cards are just slightly less evil than payday loan services. They take advantage of a (positive) human need to give, and a (negative) human need to not work hard, picking out a gift, and a (negative) need to appear to have purchased a gift when one, in fact, has not. What makes it even more evil is that because it's a gift the loss is not seen as important for the giver (they gave it away after all) or the receiver (they weren't expecting to have this thing). The burden on the receiver, to carry around this extra piece of plastic, having to remember to use it, possibly even altering your behavior to use it, makes it even more nefarious.

I don't think my position is particularly common. Certainly gift card industry fraud is low on the list of societies pressing problems. But it is a problem and one that I wish was better understood .

[cuteboy19]

Perhaps the solution is to (further) stigmatize gift cards. The Chinese seem to have figured it out with their red envelopes full of money.

[javajosh]

Yeah, how about this: when I get a gift card, I a) discount the gift about 50% based on EV and b) consider the giver kind of stupid for wasting money like this. It's like the opposite of being impressed with someone for getting a good deal. "You spent $5 and this is worth $100 to me, awesome!" versus, "You spent $25 on this and it's worth $10 to me. Yay." Everyone just fucking loses. (Like you, I am surprised at my vehemence - perhaps pg is right that writing and thinking are one and the same, and I'm just late to the epiphany that I absolutely loath gift cards. So much so I wouldn't even mind being known as "that guy who hates gift cards so much".)