
Jonathan's Card - ams1
http://jonathanstark.com/card/
======
brianleb
This reminds me of something that happened when I was just a bit younger... My
girlfriend and I were graduating from pharmacy school and she was applying for
residency positions (yes, they have those for pharmacists). Well, she found
out she got the one she really wanted and so that night we went out to a nice
dinner to celebrate. We did it up like you would expect a happy couple to -
nice bottle of wine, share an appetizer and dessert, etc. We were still living
on loans at the time and so in my head I was keeping track of about how much
the meal was going to run me at the end of the night (for better or worse -
keep in mind we were in college at the time). We had easily cleared a hundred
bucks (quite the meal for college students who usually eat $7 sandwiches or
more likely cook for themselves!), and when it was time for the bill, our
waitress told us "The couple that was sitting over there paid for it."

!

You wanna talk about made our day? Try made our week. We had seen the older
couple earlier, but we didn't know them, and they were gone by the time we got
our bill. We couldn't even thank them, and we were just so... shocked. Since
then, whenever we go out for a nice meal, I look for a young couple who looks
happy and in love, just waiting to return that favor.

C.S. Lewis described altruism in one of his apologist books as a "good
infection" - kindness that spreads uncontrollably. I can't do anything but
agree.

~~~
YetAnotherAlias
I have heard similar restaurant stories happen to some of my friends.
Jonathan's card is also a good idea.

However, I can't help wondering that with all this technology we are ending up
in a situation where the Haves help the Haves and they all feel better for a
little while. What can we do to make it easy to help the really needy?
Wouldn't it be wonderful if we could just as easily drop $10 to help someone
eat a few meals a day? I am aware of all the real world problems and
constraints, but I hope these examples inspire some of HN community to build
stuff that will help those that really need it.

~~~
hugh3
The good thing about _random_ altruism, i.e. giving stuff to people regardless
of whether they need it or not, is that it doesn't encourage welfare
dependency.

When you give free stuff to "those in need", you have to be extremely careful
not to just wind up changing the balance of incentives in a way that just
encourages them to stay "in need". Otherwise you're harming them, not helping
them.

~~~
Psyonic
I feel like random altruism makes us feel good while probably doing very
little actual good. As the OP said, it's haves giving to haves.

~~~
hugh3
As a have, I'm cool with this.

------
eggbrain
Things like this are just apt for abuse. While in real life when this happens,
we get a small connection with the person (they live near me / they also were
getting coffee), on the internet, people only see a free gift card that
automatically refills itself, and not the people that paid for it. When you
are playing with other peoples money, it's hard to be frugal.

~~~
hammock
I'm trying to figure out- what's the difference between loading the card and
just dropping $10 on the ground?

~~~
gregschlom
Nobody is going to drop back 20 bucks after they found the $10 bill.

~~~
startupfounder
Thinking outside the box and buying someone a coffee can sometimes have
unexpected results: <http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=2860312>

~~~
zoudini
Link seems to be broken. What did it point to?

~~~
startupfounder
[http://www.blog.wa.tt/finding-a-technical-co-founder-
using-a...](http://www.blog.wa.tt/finding-a-technical-co-founder-using-a-
commun)

------
pangram
Whenever I go through a toll bridge, I frequently pay the toll of the person
behind me. I've sometimes wondered if it propagates backward at all. For the
Starbucks card, I would love to live in a society where this could work.
Unfortunately it's one of those things where one anonymous bad egg will ruin
(i.e., drain the account) for everyone else. Some way to restrict it to a
community with less anonymity would help (i.e., go to a web site, auth through
hacker news, and then you get the image -- then it is tied to your HN
identity).

~~~
snprbob86
> I frequently pay the toll of the person behind me

In what country/state/city? Is that legal? In most (all?) US cities, it is
illegal to fill other peoples' parking meters because that robs the city of
fines. But maybe it's not a concern for tolls?

> I've sometimes wondered if it propagates backward at all.

At most, it would only reach exactly the car behind you. If that driver
decides to pay the toll anyway (or the attendant secretly pockets the
additional payment), the extra payment would be surely be swallowed.

~~~
makmanalp
Whoa. That's odd. I think it should be illegal for the government to rely /
depend on illegal behavior to make money. Otherwise, it seems like a conflict
of interest in that there is no incentive to tackle the root cause of crime
anymore.

~~~
nitrogen
I knew someone who got a parking ticket because he filled his meter. All the
cars next to him that didn't bother paying in the first place got nothing. We
guessed that the expiring electronic meter signaled the nearest enforcement
patrol, and they didn't bother to check neighboring meters that didn't send
the "expired" signal.

------
ookblah
Hmm, I think posting the value of the card affects the data points. I
understand why it needs to be done, but my thinking is that if nobody knows
how much is on there it leaves it less prone to outright abuse.

If the card suddenly gets a $100 recharge I'm sure it will be abused a lot
more. Maybe that's part of the experiment, but I'd like to see what people do
in general without that knowledge.

EDIT: or maybe even just a "this card has more than <insert cost of minimum
item>" so that people know it can be used, but not how many times.

~~~
jonathanstark
Jonathan here:

I've been thinking about this quite a bit. One the one hand, last week some
jerk saw a $50 balance and spent the whole thing in one shot.

On the other hand, people need to know when there is money on the card if they
are thinking about walking down to a sbux to get a coffee.

I might try the "there's more than $10 on the card right now". I've also
experimented with delaying the reloaded messages, and doling out the money
more directly by asking who wants a coffee.

Folks who respond get the update if they're quick. We'll see what happens, but
I believe that there is a sustainable way to handle it.

Cheers! j

~~~
JonathanStanton
Out of curiosity, every 15 coffees people buy, does Starbucks send you a
coupon for a free drink in the mail?

~~~
startupfounder
Looks like it: <http://yfrog.com/kizp5xqj>

------
danielodio
@Socialize just loaded $100 on the card:
<http://twitter.com/#!/Socialize/status/100347389134643200>

Here's the conf: <http://drod.io/2R3o0I2a3R3n3S2L1J2N>

~~~
dmn001
It looks like someone has figured out how to empty the card, in 2 minutes:
[https://twitter.com/#!/jonathanscard/status/1003474991889776...](https://twitter.com/#!/jonathanscard/status/100347499188977665)

~~~
danielodio
I heard that! Looks like Jonathan's social experiment is clashing w/ eBay's
"people are good" philosophy... either that or there are a LOT of thirsty
people all at the same time.

Regardless, I'm glad we tried it; anyone have any theories of how it's being
hacked?

~~~
funthree
I think someone could have bought a SBux card with it. Looks like it has
happened at least a few times now all within less than a minute or two of the
balance being there. An employee or someone camping a store, perhaps... Is it
possible to use the number to buy a card off their website online?

~~~
danielodio
I'll be willing to put another $100 on the card on behalf of @Socialize's SDK
Speed Challenge ( <http://go.GetSocialize.com/SDK-Challenge>) if someone can
come up with a way to track who's hacking it. Any ideas?

~~~
funthree
I wonder what data you could get from reading the actual barcode? Would the
CSC be in there?

Edit: I just checked with an online barcode reader and this isnt the case. It
resolves to 6061006913522430

------
joshmlewis
I used to work at Chick-fil=A before I started working for a startup and we
would get people that would start paying for the people behind them in the
drive thru and the next car would pull up and we'd say: Hey you had
a...(whatever they had)..and the car behind you has already taken care of it.
They would look shocked, smile, and say well we will get the car behind us.
And this would go on for 10 or more cars.

It was really awesome. We also had people come through and ask for food for a
homeless guy that sits on the off ramp on our interstate exit, and Chick-fil-A
would give them food to take to the homeless guy and I'm sure many more
situations occur all across the country that make peoples lives better. I
think there is a thread of hope in humanity.

------
funthree
Potentially abusive use shown in these tweets.

[http://twitter.com/#!/jonathanscard/status/10034749918897766...](http://twitter.com/#!/jonathanscard/status/100347499188977665)

[http://twitter.com/#!/jonathanscard/status/10034674284272844...](http://twitter.com/#!/jonathanscard/status/100346742842728448)

[http://twitter.com/#!/jonathanscard/status/10034195955777536...](http://twitter.com/#!/jonathanscard/status/100341959557775360)

Edit: Any ideas?

Edit: It just happened again...

[http://twitter.com/#!/jonathanscard/status/10035604975584460...](http://twitter.com/#!/jonathanscard/status/100356049755844608)

Edit: More...

[http://twitter.com/#!/jonathanscard/status/10036286052539596...](http://twitter.com/#!/jonathanscard/status/100362860525395968)

[http://twitter.com/#!/jonathanscard/status/10036486417377689...](http://twitter.com/#!/jonathanscard/status/100364864173776897)

[http://twitter.com/#!/jonathanscard/status/10036536246547660...](http://twitter.com/#!/jonathanscard/status/100365362465476608)

~~~
hassanhassan
Something does sound fishy. I wonder why someone would ruin the fun for
everyone involved.

~~~
JohnLBevan
$100 spent on coffee for the homeless maybe? Just to take an optimistic view
on the data.

~~~
hassanhassan
You could be right, since something similar did take place as can be confirmed
in one of the posts below (a large purchase for the homeless). But certainly
we can agree that $15, $30, and $100 being drained in minutes to the exact
penny must be cause for concern.

Edit: draining to $0.00 is OK, as jonathan explains below.

~~~
jonathanstark
Jonathan here:

Draining the card to the penny is not weird. If there is $10 on the card and
your purchase is $11.50, $10 will be removed from the card and you have to pay
the remaining $1.50 some other way.

Expected behavior :) j

~~~
funthree
There is at least _two_ cases that this doesnt explain.

[http://twitter.com/#!/jonathanscard/status/10034195955777536...](http://twitter.com/#!/jonathanscard/status/100341959557775360)

[http://twitter.com/#!/jonathanscard/status/10035604975584460...](http://twitter.com/#!/jonathanscard/status/100356049755844608)

edit: now at least 5, see above

~~~
jonathanstark
Jonathan here:

I see what you're saying, and of course it is possible that some jerk is
buying gift cards with the card.

That said, it's worth pointing out that the tweet stream is not real time and
it doesn't have every transaction. The card balance is scraped from the sbux
site every minute and posted to Twitter if it has changed since the last
tweet. When there are multiple transactions in the same minute, the changes
get aggregated. This can result in some strange looking numbers.

What I think we're learning here is that if someone wants to reload the card,
lots of little transactions over time is better than one big one. Or, perhaps
the balance should not be tweeted.

Thoughts? j

~~~
Cushman
Can you put spending limits on a card? Or disable it entirely?

What I'm wondering is if you can have a deposit-only card, which transfers
funds to the live card to keep it topped up at $10. Downside is some people
have to wait an extra minute or two for free coffee; upside is someone trying
to clean out the account has to spread it over a bunch of transactions, which
even if it doesn't stop everyone probably raises the barrier to entry.

A PayPal account could also work for this.

Then you could broadcast a rough total balance, and just have a binary
indicator for when the live card gets topped up.

~~~
jonathanstark
Thanks for your feedback! Your suggestion is a good one and something that
I've been considering. It is possible to reload one sbux card from another, so
I was thinking about using one for deposit only and dribbling the balance into
the purchase card at $20 per hour or similar. I think there's something about
this that would ruin the excitement so I'm working on different approach at
the moment. Not sure where it'll end up.

~~~
Cushman
Yeah, I was thinking about that too. One thought I had (which others have
suggested) is to encourage people to donate in small amounts— rather than drop
$25 on the card if you're feeling generous, you should drop $5 on it each
morning for a week.

But since that's kind of a hassle, then you'd whip up a quick app that lets
people easily amortize a larger contribution over a series of coffee-scale
contributions. Connect that to their twitter account, and you can credit each
individual coffee donation to an individual and report them individually.

It's _effectively_ the same as having a larger account balance, but since
you're not holding the money it feels more engaging and social for folks.

~~~
jonathanstark
The thing that scares me about this idea is the effect it would have on the
donor if they didn't see their donation reflected immediately in the feed. Not
only is it less exciting, but it potentially opens up questions about where
the money is in the meantime.

I will strenuously avoid this turning into anything resembling a bank - it
needs to be more like a "take a penny, leave a penny" tray sitting on a
Starbucks counter. If someone want to be a jerk and empty the tray into his
pocket, so be it. They're just a jerk who I'm sure will get what they deserve
in life.

Fingers crossed, j

~~~
JohnLBevan
If you go with the deposit only card option, you could adjust your feed to
display the aggregate of the two cards; but you're effectively capping an
individual transaction to $20. The donor therefore sees their changes
reflected in real time, but any cheats are limited (hopefully a cashier would
get suspicious / frustrated if someone tried to work around the $20 limit by
going multiple times in succession).

------
gabrielroth
I'm kind of playing devil's advocate here and kind of not: How can you justify
spending $n to buy coffee for someone with a smartphone instead of donating $n
to someone with fewer resources and greater needs?

~~~
jonathanstark
Jonathan here:

Fair point. My goal is to figure out the dynamics of social giving in this
fashion and create a similar sustainable model around items that are less
"luxury" than coffee.

For example, I can imaging people paying for other people's groceries or
medicine in a similar manner. Maybe I'm crazy, but it seems worth trying.

Best, j

~~~
Cushman
I don't go to Starbucks, but I just loaded up $10 because I'd really like to
see this "succeed", whatever that means. It's gone already, so I guess the
experiment is working? :P

~~~
jonathanstark
Thanks! If you have a Twitter account PLMK your username so I can give you
credit :)

------
danielodio
$5,000 for @jonathanscard ... why not!
<http://twitter.com/#!/Socialize/status/100375061587951616>

------
michaelschade
Although the bit about paying it forward and social sharing is a great idea on
its own, I think I'm a tad more excited that he actually made an API for this.
That's seriously awesome.

------
wallflower
> Plus, it’s actually kinda fun to see those rewards stars drop into my in-app
> coffee cup.

Well, Jonathan may get the Rewards so it is not completely altruistic.

A real-time map of where transactions have been made ala
<http://twittervision.com> might be interesting if this card goes viral

<https://www.starbucks.com/card/rewards>

~~~
jonathanstark
Jonathan here:

Yes, unfortunately I do get the rewards. I get a free coffee for every 15
purchased. I figured that the free coffees would accrue to the card itself and
therefore every 16th person would get a free coffee. As it turns out, sbux
mails free coffee coupons to me:

<http://yfrog.com/keup3hxj>

I'm not sure how to redistribute them fairly, but I was thinking that I could
at least pass them out at my local store. However, doing so is expressly
forbidden and my name is on the postcards.

Thoughts? j

~~~
jerf
If you're willing to throw the dice a bit, and you wouldn't consider this a
tainting factor (no sarcasm), contact Starbucks. There's a distinct
possibility they may work with you. Depending on how you judge the risk, you
may want to do this anyhow, lest they simply shut the card down entirely in
the near future. There is of course the risk that contacting them may cause
that result sooner, but... in the long term you're probably better off
contacting them anyhow because if they're going to shut it down when you bring
it to their attention, they're going to shut it down when they discover it
anyhow. I think you still come out ahead in the case where you contact them
and they end up not shutting it down when they would have if you didn't
contact them.

Otherwise, you're "stuck"; be open about it (as you are), and use them or not.
I wouldn't hold it against you either way, personally.

~~~
JohnLBevan
Good shout - and Starbucks know good press so they're likely to keep it open
when they see how much attention this project's getting. It seems strange that
they don't just give you the free ones direct to your card - I guess it's down
to the psychology of receiving a free actual physical thing, rather than there
just being a slightly longer delay between needing to top up your card.

------
wallflower
I know it is a fictional movie but if you haven't seen it, "Pay it Forward" is
a movie that might make you briefly think about your impact.

~~~
SoftwareMaven
But stop watching 15 minutes before the end. The end of the movie totally
countered everything they were trying to say in the rest of movie, IMO.

------
david927
There's a cafe under the castle in Prague where for a decade or more, patrons
can buy an extra coffee for someone else. A physical cup goes up on a line
above the counter. Others, usually students, will come in, see the cups, and
ask for the free coffee. A Czech architecture student told me she never paid
for a coffee -- just took one from those donated. When I would visit the cafe,
I would make sure to add another cup or two to the line.

Jonathan's Card didn't seems to work, and it makes me think (unsurprisingly)
that what works at local levels as this cafe in Prague, can't work in the
Extremistan that is the entire global community.

We're so used to all the benefits of this new, suddenly-made-close world: play
poker with a guy in Singapore one moment, buy an antique off an old woman in
Portugal the next, without moving anything but the mouse; that we forget the
beauty and function that the local still provides.

------
ben1040
This reminds me of the drive-through "pay-it-forward" chains that
spontaneously appear from time to time:

[http://seattletimes.nwsource.com/html/localnews/2004084452_w...](http://seattletimes.nwsource.com/html/localnews/2004084452_webstarbucks20m.html?syndication=rss)

------
coverband
Such a simple and wonderful idea; it brightened my Sunday. (Edit: I wonder how
soon it will take SBX to decide that this is a vulnerability in their mobile
app and change something that will break this.)

~~~
dvdhsu
It really doesn't seem that much of a "vulnerability" actually. The only way
to get a picture is if you get ahold of the victim's phone, or they willingly
give it up to you.

If you get ahold of the victim's phone, the victim has bigger problems (NFC,
e-mail, saved passwords, etc.).

~~~
tedunangst
All you need is a high-res picture of the victim's phone. Take a picture of
them paying, use the same barcode yourself.

------
rglover
Standing in line waiting for my drink. Cool experiment. Going to put the cash
back when I get home.

~~~
rglover
Follow-up, going to add money now but learning why for the modest bunch, this
is genius. I spent a bout $5.50 USD to get a drink for my girlfriend and I.
When I go to the Starbucks reload a card site, I have to put at least $10.00
USD on the card. What's more is this made me really think about the idea of
Google Wallet and any other phone-based credit card apps. In theory, I could
take a screenshot of anyone's card and just mail it to myself. Does anyone
know if there's plans to randomize barcodes/symbols to prevent things like
this? This really just brightened up my Sunday evening.

------
emeltzer
The twitter feed updates once per minute, so if the $100 is spent by a bunch
of people w/in that period of time, it will just show -$100. Should be
checkable by Jonathan?

------
jt2190
"Jonathan's Card is an experiment in social sharing of physical goods using
digital currency on mobile phones."

What, exactly, is the hypothesis? While this _seems_ cool, I really don't
understand what he's setting out to prove, that we don't already know: This
will work until the number of people who abuse it grows to a certain point,
after which everyone will loose faith, and nobody will contribute more funds.

[Ha. I just noticed the posts describing how this is being hacked.]

------
dustyreagan
This is a really cool experiment. Coffee seems like the perfect use case since
it's awkward to exploit, in that you're not going to buy $100 worth of coffee,
just because the card has $100 on it. But what about other physical goods,
like Barnes & Nobles, HEB, Home Depot?

~~~
redthrowaway
Well, you could buy a $100 starbucks card, which would break things. Someone
already spent $30:
[http://twitter.com/#!/jonathanscard/status/10029778012327526...](http://twitter.com/#!/jonathanscard/status/100297780123275264)

~~~
Sam_Odio
That was me. One latte plus $25 worth of food for two homeless guys outside.
Turns out they didn't want any of it. I think I might've insulted them by
bringing them food that they hadn't asked for. :/

~~~
iamdave
This is a pretty great counterpoint to people who see something like this and
immediately think of those who want to 'game the game'. Not that the exception
proves the rule, but altruism does (in my opinion) beget altruism, good on you
Sam.

~~~
TranceaddicT
Too bad the altruism was a ruse.

------
russjhammond
Here is a heat map of the location of @ mentions for @jonathanscard, which for
the most part is the location of those that have added funds to the card.

<http://www.myheatmap.com/maps/b2Pqu0EGSgs=>

------
rdl
It would be really fun to combine this kind of point of sale reward with games
or puzzles or tasks, sort of like mechanical Turk combined with OKCupid or
wufoo.

Cash prizes are less interesting for this kind of thing. (various studies)

~~~
angryasian
>Cash prizes are less interesting for this kind of thing.

I've read the same, but I don't believe it. For example people will say that
fame is more important than money, but I would argue fame leads to more work,
or more free stuff which in turn leads to money or more money than a set cash
incentive. Or the case where people do things for points, but when those
points are redeemable for physical items or discounts again this leads right
back to some sort of cash savings. I think it always go back to some sort of
monetary incentive.

~~~
JohnLBevan
I read in a recent Wired UK article that some banks have opted to pay a sum of
money to a charity of their employee's choice, rather than paying the employee
a full bonus - the idea being they've found this to be a better motivator for
employees. Though admittedly it's also good publicity for the banks running
such schemes.

------
lucianof
I tried to load it, but all I got was: "This recipient does not accept
payments from non-U.S. PayPal accounts." (I'm Swiss) Why would Starbucks
restrict from where they get their money?

~~~
mkorfmann
Paying with CC from outside the US works.

~~~
lucianof
Hm, I didn't feel like giving *$ my email. But now that I tried it it says:
"Please select a state or province." (I cant find anything in this list that
is not US/Can) and "Please enter a ZIP Code at least 5 characters long" (we
just have 4 digits). They just don't want my money..

~~~
mkorfmann
"Please select a state or a province" I selected "Armed Forces Europe" ;)

~~~
lucianof
Instead of virtually enlisting in the US Army I decided to just donate 10x
what I tried to load on the card to a charity for Somalia. Thanks Jonathan for
igniting my desire to give!

~~~
mkorfmann
How is that Jonathans fault?

~~~
kapnobatairza
I think he was being genuine.

------
BlackJack
The balance just went from $0 to $40 - awful nice of whoever did it. I'm a big
fan of this idea - put in $5 and you can help out someone who you've probably
never met!

~~~
startupfounder
what about buying a coffee and then loading the exact amount back on the card?

~~~
brk
Seems to kind of defeat the point?

Use it when you can't afford coffee, refill it when you can afford a coffee
plus a little more...

~~~
Peaker
I don't understand: Do people really alternate between being able to afford a
coffee and not being able to, more than a couple of times in a lifetime?

~~~
gnaritas
Seriously, many people experience that weekly. That's what it means to live
paycheck to paycheck.

~~~
brianleb
I'm really not trying to be critical of other people's lifestyles (and I like
the idea behind Jonathan's Card), but when it comes down to it I would want to
be able to educate those people that they are living outside of their means
rather than enable them.

If you're living paycheck to paycheck and buying Starbucks every morning,
that's definitely part of your problem. I understand and fully appreciate
paying a bit more for a quality product, but when it comes down to it, being
able to start a savings and plan for your future is more important than
enjoying a better cup of coffee in the morning. It's directly analagous to
buying a car that's out of your price range (say, a Lexus when you're only
bringing in $35,000 a year pre-tax) and struggling to pay the note on it every
month. You really can live with the cheaper product, and in the long run it
may do you a world of good.

Am I wrong? I'd like to see some other people's input on this idea.

~~~
gnaritas
You're not wrong about what they should do, it just has no bearing on what
they do do. Given the choice between short term pleasure or long term pleasure
for a short term sacrifice, most choose the former rather than the latter.
Being able to delay pleasure is a skill many people just don't have.

------
robryan
I don't really like how this is playing out, seems every time the card gets a
decent amount of funds it gets takes in 1 lump sum. As people have said I
think the buy a gift card thing ruins it, socially I don't think people would
run up $100 purchase in one go unless they aren't buying coffee/ food.

If people donating to it's money is all going to a couple of people working
the system for their own gain it doesn't really motivate people to give to it.

------
Udo
At this point it's clear that the card can be abused as there are people who
for some reason think it's cool to suck the balance completely dry.

However, a company like Starbucks could set something up that is very similar
to Jonathan's experiment but with a reduced abuse potential: just introduce a
card with a limit per transaction. For example, if you could only charge 6 USD
per purchase to the card, it would make life difficult for the cheaters.

------
chandraonline
This is a great experiment. I just added some money to the card. I wonder to
prevent abuse, if perhaps you should use two cards , one for people to give to
(A) and the other to use at starbucks (B). You can transfer from (A) to (B),
when the balance of (B) goes below a certain amount say $15 so that one person
can't abuse the card by taking away all the existing balance.

------
jyap
I put in $11. Part of it was to download my iOS app Canon Lens Buddy
(<http://bit.ly/pe2KFS>) as part of Advertising/social experiment.

The credits lasted 10 minutes before used up. Should be interesting to see if
this results in any downloads.

Proof of top up: <http://twitpic.com/62shre>

------
apaprocki
Interesting experiment in that the image is public with no signup/restriction
to get at it. You would need to have a continuous stream of new "pay-it-
forward" users to add money on the card, no? There are lots of coffee drinkers
in the world... Wasn't there something in the news not too long ago about an
investment firm that ran this way? :)

~~~
rflrob
> Wasn't there something in the news not too long ago about an investment firm
> that ran this way? :)

Only if there's also a continuous stream of people who are drinking without
paying. If, out of a sense of community responsibility, people pay in close to
what they drink (or a little bit more), then this system works.

~~~
apaprocki
Yes, but that is kind of what posting the image without a barrier to entry
kind of guarantees, no? I guess that is the 'experiment'.. It would be more
interesting if there were two cards, one public, one restricted to HN members
or some other subset of 'public'.

------
dave1619
It would be cool if you could see who paid for your coffee and also who had
spent the money, and let them communicate.

~~~
startupfounder
Dave, just did that. Looking for a co-founder for my cleantech startup who
likes coffee... very important... Jonathan gave me a sweet shoutout.

------
projectionist
Reminds me of cafe in Japan where you order for person who comes after you and
you eat what was ordered by person before you
<http://www.cabel.name/2009/09/kashiwa-mystery-cafe.html>

------
michaelschade
I've created a Haskell implementation of his API:
<http://rawr.mschade.me/jonathanscard/>

The page on Rawr includes a basic usage example as well as links to my
implementation on GitHub and Hackage.

------
danielodio
OK I just tried a test: @Socialize put $49 on the card -- let's see if a
smaller amount still tips off the hacker:
<http://drod.io/2E071F3T0C0V0G1w0f39>

~~~
danielodio
the $49 is on there! Someone go buy a latte, quick!
<http://drod.io/3F0U1n340W1c0H1H0F29>

~~~
Klondike
That $49 sparked my walk over to Starbucks on the corner to buy one. (I put
$10 on the card last night myself, hadn't used any.) By the time I was halfway
there it was gone, and I decided to just buy it anyway, hoping it'd gotten
filled but the feed hadn't updated yet -- and the barista gave it to me for
free, unprovoked. I didn't even have to present the card.

------
connor
I agree, photos, names, or some proof of humanity of the people behind the
karma would help to stem abuse. The internet almost makes this abuse of karma
easier due to the anonymity. You just don't feel as bad.

------
jonb
I contributed in order to get people telling my wife
(<http://twitter.com/#!/raintea>) Happy Birthday tomorrow (8/8).

Thought I'd cross-post here for the cause too :)

------
aoberoi
just made a basic visualization of the data on the balances endpoint.
<http://aoberoi.me/jonathans-card/>

I'm thinking about what types of interesting questions we can answer by
visualizing the data. If anyone wants to contribute to that effort, fork me on
github (<https://github.com/aoberoi/jonathans-card>) and send me a pull
request, i'll update the site.

------
dvdhsu
As somebody else mentioned, it's unfortunate that one bad person could ruin it
for everybody else.

Is it possible to restrict the card only to coffee (to prevent huge catering
orders)?

~~~
rmc
It's _possible_ someone could abuse it. It will be interesting experimental
data to see if this happens, how often it happens, and how much it happens.

------
notJim
There's no money on the card? <http://jonathanstark.com/card/api/latest>

~~~
jonknee
There's $46.88 now, it fluctuates a lot.

------
artursapek
I hope Starbucks' system can handle the amount of activity this thing is
eventually going to get! You're picking up a lot of steam.

------
hassanhassan
awesome initiative! I always loved the pay it forward concept.

P.S. does anyone want to call this guy Lord Starkbucks?

Now I know where Jon Snow ends up.

------
useflyer
this is completely amazing and a great proof of concept -- there is so much
that could be built on top of this

~~~
pshc
A while ago I was toying with the idea of making a BitCoin<->SBUX automated
exchanger for fun, since card transactions are free and could be automated
relatively easily. Never did get around to it. Also, there's a rather large
scammy underside to BitCoin that would probably arbitrage the hell out of it.

~~~
pnathan
Arbitrage with BitCoin? Surely you joke!

------
samspot
I think it is wonderful that many are generously giving others free coffee.

But... how many of them really believe in karma?

------
realsociable
Karma Behaviorism: Does It Pay Off? <http://bit.ly/nMPtFV>

------
canistr
And in case anyone was wondering the first balance he tweeted was:

jonathanscard

I got $7.91 left on me.

18 Jul

------
corroded
this is such a good thing and i hate to see this go to waste when some
capitalist bastard starts selling coffees for half the price using the card.

------
grandalf
It worked! Thanks for the iced Americano and pastry!

~~~
startupfounder
I think you might be the only person who has given thanks verbally back to the
community... good on ya!

------
EmielMols
So, anybody set up the Auto-Reload yet ;-)?

------
angryasian
interesting experiment, but all it takes is one troll to ruin the whole thing.

------
johnzimmerman
I love this idea.

------
warrantsuspect
You can check the balance here <http://www.talkaboutdesign.com/starbucks/>

------
Qa8BBatwHxK8Pu
US only?

------
stringbot
And Starbucks shuts this down in 5... 4... 3... 2...

~~~
scrrr
Why should they?

~~~
kristofferR
Because he gets a lot of free coffee rebates.

~~~
manojlds
Why would they care as long they get 15 cups of coffee sold? And one person
with lots of free coffee tokens is very less likely to use them all than
various persons having them.

------
danielodio
OK I'm going to go nuclear to determine if this is some automated script or a
manual hack: @Socialize just put $300 (!!!) on the card (remember... this is
to promote the SDK Speed Challenge... so maybe click the link so I can claim
some kind of ROI! <http://go.GetSocialize.com/SDK-Challenge>)

I figure if it's a script, the $300 will disappear instantly. But if it's
manual, it's unlikely that someone could manually xfer that at a Starbucks
counter w/o getting questioned.

Confirmations (max was $100 at a time):

<http://drod.io/0G391o170o1e1V0Y400H> <http://drod.io/1t362M3B1a0t421I1Q0b>
<http://drod.io/2O1R052m0g0q1g1P1x1V>

~~~
jonathanstark
Jonathan here:

The card was not hacked. Looks more like you're just trying to promote your
link. Thanks though.

Cheers! j

~~~
danielodio
Jonathan, re: not hacked -- do you think people are _really_ spending exactly
$45 at Starbucks in one shot?

~~~
danielodio
@michaelschade that's my point exactly: $45 was removed and $4 was left on the
card:
[http://twitter.com/#!/jonathanscard/status/10035604975584460...](http://twitter.com/#!/jonathanscard/status/100356049755844608)

So someone either bought _exactly_ $45 worth of Starbucks on the card within
minutes of me putting $49 on it, or someone is hacking it.

