Gift certificates

Sunday, May 17th, 2009

I don’t understand gift certificates. I mean, the idea is quite good: A piece of paper that represents a certain value, and which you can then trade for goods of some kind. Much better than dragging all that gold around all the time. So in that regard, gift certificates are an awesome idea. Except that we already have this thingy which is made of paper (most of the time) and that represents a certain value. It’s called “money”.

The best thing about money is that you can spend it on everything, everywhere. Whereas most gift certificates are only valid in certain stores. The only reason gift certificates make sense is if the giver wants you to spend it in a certain store. I guess that’s the reason gift certificates exist: vendor lock-in. Another brilliant way of controlling how and where we spend our money. Capitalism, yay.

I prefer money.