Hacker News new | ask | show | jobs
by ScottWhigham 4808 days ago
To help promote this new currency, Amazon is going to give away tens of millions of dollars in Amazon Coins to Kindle Fire users. This money will be burning a proverbial hole in customers’ pockets as they look for places to spend it. We’d like your app to be one of the tempting places to spend that currency.

That's such a weird juxtaposition of ideas - "promoting a new currency" by giving away "tens of millions of dollars". It just feels weird. I suppose it's ultimately no different than Google Checkout giving users $10 on their first purchase[1] but it just feels different when they say "currency" vs. "payment method". With the phrase "payment method", my brain does the mental switch, "Should I pay with my Visa or my Amex card? Or what about cash?" No worries - we do that often enough that it's second nature. But with the word "currency", my brain does a double take - "Wait - I have to learn a new currency?" and then there's all sorts of questions...

Oh well, nothing of value to my post here - just brain dumping.

[1] http://www.michikono.com/2007/03/23/the-importance-of-google...