Great Deal!



  • Look at how much you can earn on each purchase!

     




  •  Well, at least we know why the eBay Bucks program is always free. Always.



  • It's sad that no math is considered a selling point in this society.



  • @DescentJS said:

    It's sad that no math is considered a selling point in this society.

     

    It is. And it is indeed.



  • I wish I could disagree and point to our great high quality public education system....



  • @DescentJS said:

    It's sad that no math is considered a selling point in this society.

    Why?  I know more math than I will ever use in my life and I enjoy educating myself for fun, but a program that offers to do the math certainly has an advantage over one that doesn't.  You sound like a bitter, old high school math teacher from 30 years ago complaining about how calculators make people dumb.  Do professional chefs complain when they go to restaurants and the food is prepared for them?  Sparing the user boring gruntwork is the essence of marketing.  I don't see how math is not subject to this.



  • @morbiuswilters said:

    @DescentJS said:

    It's sad that no math is considered a selling point in this society.

    Why?  I know more math than I will ever use in my life and I enjoy educating myself for fun, but a program that offers to do the math certainly has an advantage over one that doesn't.  You sound like a bitter, old high school math teacher from 30 years ago complaining about how calculators make people dumb.  Do professional chefs complain when they go to restaurants and the food is prepared for them?  Sparing the user boring gruntwork is the essence of marketing.  I don't see how math is not subject to this.

     

    The point is not that they do keep track of your 'earnings'  for you, not even that they advertise it (although that is already included in "no hassles All you have to do is sign up. We'll take care of the rest.", so why make an extra point of it?).

    The point is that they do it under the special heading "no math", 'cause, even Barbie knows "Math is hard!". Can you even seriously imagine somebody promoting a service under the heading "no geography" or "no history"? It's only maths (yes, back to correct British usage now) and to a smaller extent science one can (ab)use in that way.



  • Yeah because we have computers for that.  A computer still has to tell you history and geography, so you might as well learn that yourself. But you don't really need to know the intermediates in math and science calculations as long as there is some program somewhere that guarantees the right answer.  A bonus is that it gives you more time to waste.



  • The point is that they do it under the special heading "no math"

    Wait, so what would the alternative be? Allow the users to calculate it themselves (why yes, of course I legitimately earned $over9000 on that $5 item I bought!)

     

    See also http://xkcd.com/641/. Advertising a feature for which there is no sane alternative is just ridiculous. (Although if you've got a program that actually does give me $over9000 for buying a $5 item I want a link.)



  • @scgtrp said:

    The point is that they do it under the special heading "no math"

    Wait, so what would the alternative be? Allow the users to calculate it themselves (why yes, of course I legitimately earned $over9000 on that $5 item I bought!)

     

    See also http://xkcd.com/641/. Advertising a feature for which there is no sane alternative is just ridiculous. (Although if you've got a program that actually does give me $over9000 for buying a $5 item I want a link.)

    1) You just referenced xkcd in making your argument.  This makes you automatically wrong, stupid, ugly and hated by every sane person on Earth.

    2) They're advertising the simplicity of their service.  Sure, people could infer that no sane program would let you calculate your own rebates, but that's not how advertising works.  They're constructing a narrative that makes it easier for potential customers to imagine what using the service is like, which is a very standard and reasonable advertising practice.  Now, either you are either too fucking stupid to understand this or you are being a hyper-critical douchebag.  Either way you are wrong, stupid, ugly and hated by every sane person on Earth.





  •  Didn't anyone (beside me) spot that awesome offering of "get[ting] [b]0%[/b] back on qualifying items"?



  • @Anonymouse said:

     Didn't anyone (beside me) spot that awesome offering of "get[ting] 0% back on qualifying items"?

     

     

    That was why I posted it orignally. I really did not notice the no math part till this thread, but since your earning 0%, you really do not NEED math! :) 



  • @Anonymouse said:

     Didn't anyone (beside me) spot that awesome offering of "get[ting] 0% back on qualifying items"?

     That's why my post (almost frist!) said "Well, at least we know why the eBay Bucks program is always free. Always." See, if they give you back 0% then there would be no cost to them so the program could be free. Always free. Always.



  •  Thank God. All my other rewards programs make me manually calculate the discounts using long division on a napkin.



  • @fennec said:

    Oh, yes, I get to do this now. :)

    I suppose you're the kind of person who enjoys taking a dump right in the middle of the Arby's men's room floor.

     

    @fennec said:

    seriously, someone is full of themselves and their own opinions. :)

    At least I'm not full of Randall Munroe's brown, clotted semen.  Nor his opinions.



  • @morbiuswilters said:

    At least I'm not full of Randall Munroe's brown, clotted semen.  Nor his opinions.
     

     

    Semen clots?



  • @Ilya Ehrenburg said:

    The point is that they do it under the special heading "no math", 'cause, even Barbie knows "Math is hard!". Can you even seriously imagine somebody promoting a service under the heading "no geography" or "no history"? It's only maths (yes, back to correct British usage now) and to a smaller extent science one can (ab)use in that way.

    Aren't maps and driving/transit directions essentially tools to save viewers the trouble of knowing the geography?

    If I had to guess, though, I'd say that it's more difficult to imagine a service promoting "no history" because hardly anybody actually uses that knowledge on a typical day, whereas math is a frequently-used discipline.  Take anything that people have to do frequently and don't really enjoy doing and you'll find somebody willing to capitalize on doing it for them.  Taxis and tour buses offer "no walking/driving".  Frozen foods and other convenience foods offer "no preparation" or even "no cooking".  Space heaters offer "no banging rocks together for 2 hours trying to create a spark."

    Personally, I'd be more worried about bloated government bureaucracies sending the messages, "no work", "no responsibility", and possibly, "no clue." Those are all significantly worse than "no math."



  • @Aaron said:

    If I had to guess, though, I'd say that it's more difficult to imagine a service promoting "no history"...

    Liberalism?



  • @Aaron said:

    If I had to guess, though, I'd say that it's more difficult to imagine a service promoting "no history" because hardly anybody actually uses that knowledge on a typical day

    Sadly, this is true.  That having been said, I find myself frequently applying lessons learned from history, even if I'm not utilizing the actual history knowledge itself.

    That having been said, the lessons they seemed to try to teach the most haven't been all that useful.  I mean, there were all these wars, and, well, I never get in any wars.  (Well, ok - I may be applying that 'war is bad' lesson, and avoiding them a bit there.)



  •  But "no math" is needed! The points earned, are, after all, 0%! So, the only rebate will be 0, and no one will ever have to do any calculations at all.

     



  • @ratboy667 said:

     But "no math" is needed! The points earned, are, after all, 0%! So, the only rebate will be 0, and no one will ever have to do any calculations at all.

     

    Does this mean they send out the same email to everyone, calling them [FIRST NAME] all the time and always generically sending out the same report that looks eerily photocopied in the mail?


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