
Amazon Allowance - louhong
http://www.amazon.com/b?ie=UTF8&node=11453461011
======
olympus
I applaud the effort Amazon is making to expand its influence, and giving kids
an Amazon allowance would lock them in because it doesn't look too easy to
convert that money back to real cash.

But I don't think this one will stick around for very long. Prepaid cash/debit
cards and automated deposits are an older and more proven way of doing this
(not to mention just handing your kids $20 in cash every week). By giving them
something that is accepted everywhere, you teach them how to handle limited
amounts of money and how to resist temptations -- if I drop $5 on gas station
snacks, I've just burned up a sizeable chunk of my allowance on something that
will be gone in 10 minutes. Giving an allowance is great to teach young
teenagers how to handle money before they get their own job, but I don't see
Amazon breaking into this and locking kids into buying only from Amazon.

~~~
superuser2
If you give teenagers cash, they can't spend it online. Thanks to KYC rules
and bank policies, you have to be 18 to get anything that looks like a credit
card.

Best plan for teenagers is a joint checking account (dedicated to the child's
use) at your bank, with a debit card they can use for day-to-day spending. You
can do allowance, etc with transfers, and most bankd will play ball as long as
one person on the account (the parent) is 18.

~~~
w1ntermute
> If you give teenagers cash, they can't spend it online. Thanks to KYC rules
> and bank policies, you have to be 18 to get anything that looks like a
> credit card.

What about those prepaid cards you can buy for cash at B&M stores? I'm pretty
sure you can use those online.

~~~
superuser2
Activation requires you to (pretend to) be 18, AFAIK. Also they have quite
hefty fees; a checking accout is free as long as you don't overdraft.

~~~
smnrchrds
Checking account are free? Well, chequing accounts are not :(

Among the downsides of being in Canada is paying higher prices for anything
that is not health care.

~~~
jacalata
In the US most bank checking accounts have a monthly fee which is waived if
you meet certain conditions, like maintain a minimum balance (I think mine was
$1000) or get an automatic direct deposit at least 2 times per month of $250
or more - these would be hard to meet for a childs account. Credit unions are
usually free though.

~~~
superuser2
There is usually a "relationship waiver" that eliminates the fees on all the
accounts you're party to as long as you have enough total wealth parked with
that bank.

------
pech0rin
This seems like a great way to give employees a bit of a perk. An allowance
could be used for technical books, and or other learning materials.

~~~
sombremesa
This is Amazon we're talking about. The company that doesn't give employees
prime, free hardware to take home, or a real employee discount.

~~~
elmin
Amazons margins are so narrow an employee discount without some sort of cap
would be ridiculous.

~~~
rifung
Indeed that may be true. But it's still pretty pitiful that they only let you
apply your discount to $1000 worth of products a year. That means you save..
$100 each year!

------
dc-tech-fan
I want this for something like Fiverr.

Instead of my kids accumulating more junk, they learn the skills of hiring and
delegating.

Don't want to mow the lawn in this heat? Use your allowance to somebody else
to do it. As long as the job is done they will earn their allowance.

I just need a way to make sure they're not outsourcing their homework or
paying somebody buy them alcohol.

~~~
mentat
I find this disturbing in a way I can't quite quantify. Kids should do things,
not just appear to do things because they're clever about outsourcing to
someone worse off.

~~~
derefr
Hiring and managing someone else, while being the point-of-contact with your
clients, _is_ doing a thing; it's a very useful life-skill, in fact. There are
other useful life-skills they might be better off not delegating away the
learning opportunities for, of course, but usually "chores" are less learning
experiences and more "I used to do this thing, but now you're old enough to
take the load off me."

Of course, if there's no life-lesson, why not just cut out the middle-man and
have a local chore marketplace where kids from all around the neighbourhood
can directly bid on the contract to mow your lawn. (Mostly kidding, but that'd
be somewhat interesting for people who don't _have_ kids, and don't need a
full-on gardener.)

~~~
chrsstrm
Here's a little life lesson that was kicked down to me:

"Don't ever ask/command/order someone to do something that you would not do
yourself."

Interpret how you like, but to me it means, "Get your hands dirty and
appreciate what it takes to do a job before you delegate."

------
falcolas
This would be fantastic for use with AWS, give developers a monthly balance to
spin up their choice of environments. Could be pretty awesome.

~~~
joshstrange
Especially since rollover is built in.

------
dkhenry
I like the idea, but I would really like to see a bank or another finical
institution offer some services that I can use as a modern introduction to
banking for my kids. When I was a kid I had a savings account, and a savings
book that I took to the bank to do all my banking. All my deposits and
withdrawls were printed into the book by the teller and it was easy enough for
me to fill out deposit slips for the checks and cash my family gave me or I
earned doing jobs around the neighborhood.

Let my kids have a debit card and let them use ATM's and smart phone apps just
like I do, even better if its designed to be useable by children to encourage
good banking behaviors.

------
gnoway
AKA the Amazon Reverse Microloan program.

------
nmridul
Simple paypal alternative that is free .... Could not find any fee info, so
should be free...

Then this could easily be used for accepting payments for services or sales.
Since I anyways spend on amazon, better accept payments this way without any
fee...

------
DanBlake
Will be interesting if this can be expanded to workers for office supplies and
whatnot.

~~~
adanto6840
Check out Amazon Business, which appears to allow you to set up multiple users
in a hierarchy (including at least some sort of a custom "approvals" system),
set thresholds, etc...

[http://www.amazon.com/b?node=11261610011](http://www.amazon.com/b?node=11261610011)

Not sure if it's new or not, recently got a call about getting into it though
we declined as we're a small shop & already happy with the level of service we
get via Prime.

------
jkestner
How about teaching them about saving? It'd be nice if this was interest-
bearing.

------
elwell
Cool idea, I think they might have trouble reaching their target audience
though.

------
nlake44
I don't understand how Amazon can afford to maintain so many projects given
their revenue is so low
([https://finance.yahoo.com/q/is?s=AMZN&annual](https://finance.yahoo.com/q/is?s=AMZN&annual)).
Someone care to explain?

~~~
hiddencost
90 billion is low? Or are you talking about income? They can afford so many
projects because they're making an enormous amount of money and shoveling it
all back into these projects.

------
floridaguy01
great product landing page. Loads quick and lots of information. Works great
on mobile. 10/10

