
Bum-a-Cigarette App Idea. Thoughts? - visakanv
http://www.visakanv.com/blog/2013/09/bum-a-cigarette-app-idea/
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corin_
> _It’s quite embarrassing to ask for a cigarette. It makes you look like a
> moocher. You might get turned down. Worst of all, you get forced to confront
> your horrible addiction._

So offer money when doing it. If I want to bum a smoke I'll offer a quid (£1
for 1/20th of an £8 pack) - more often than not, they'll give me a fag without
taking the money. Equally when others offer me money for a cigarette I won't
take it (while if they don't offer, I'll give them one anyway if I'm in a good
mood... but not always).

The app seems to solve a problem I don't think really exists - trying to find
smokers - while it's list of reasons (such as using money to make it less
embarrassing) can be solved by individuals already, very easily.

Here's the app I'd find useful - where can I buy cigarettes, full packs. I
have this problem when I go abroad (Paris, you need to find a bar not a shop.
Vienna you seem to be shit out of luck on a Sunday - but maybe I looked in the
wrong places), and I have this problem when I'm out late (last night I had to
spend a while in London trying to find somewhere that was open late, and even
then they only had one brand so I had to get that.. while paying a premium).

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rtpg
On a personal level I would not really appreciate something that encourages
more smoking (Everywhere I go I have to deal with other people's smoking, it's
noxious and I don't see a good argument to letting people smoke in places like
public parks or walking along sidewalks, yet it happens all the time).

But on the more business-y level, this does seem interesting. Ideally, there's
a big potential market for people bumming cigarettes , especially in crowded
areas. But I see two major problems:

\- In crowded areas, how do you identify who the seller/buyer is ? There's a
contacting issue (maybe face pics could solve this).

\- As mentioned by gedrap, you'd need a pretty big density for this. People
aren't willing to cross town to get a cig like they would to pick up free
cupboards.

Honestly, a better solution for this would probably be a sort of dispensary
where you could just deposit cigs somewhere and people could buy them. Or just
cut out the user-aspect, and make a single-cigarette dispensary. That would
avoid quality problems. Unfortunately this solution isn't necessarily
"interesting", but it's probably the most "correct".

~~~
corin_
> _make a single-cigarette dispensary_

.. or sell them in the same places packs get sold, whether that's shops or
bars or machines or wherever.

~~~
DanBC
That's not legal in the UK, where people buying single cigs tend to be
children.

~~~
corin_
Didn't know that - shame really, under-age smoking should be combated by
enforcing ID checking.

~~~
DanBC
We tend to use a combination of measures.

18 is the legal minimum age to buy cigs (recently raised from 16) and shops
should be checking ID. Ideally they check if they think the purchaser is under
21.

We combine that with other stuff - advertising bans, placement restrictions
inside shops, quantities sold, eye-watering tax levels, etc.

Some of these are counter productive. The high tax rate means many cigs are
smuggled into the country. And this is a route for counterfeit product. Legal
cigs are harmful enough, but some of the counterfeit product is worse,
contaminated with a variety of weird stuff.

Banning smoking in public buildings (something I'm in favour of) means a few
people smoke in their cars, but with their children in the car too. That's
pretty bad. Many children are admitted to hospital because their parents
smoke, and so increasing the tobacco smoke that children are exposed to feels
like a bad idea.

I'm generally tolerant of government regulation, but we have too much in the
UK.

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Jugurtha
I don't think it's a problem. Most people would feel insulted if you _offer_
money when bumming a cigarette. It's like "Dude !". Cash is vulgar in the
"bumming" frame. The way to reframe it if you _really_ want to pay is to say:
"Can you sell me a cigarette?" and not bum it. But even then, people will tend
to give it to you for free.

So unless the person is really poor, they won't accept money. And even then,
there's some "I'm poor but generous" going on.

It's an interesting concept, though. But in my opinion, one should remove cash
from the equation.

The other question that would arise would be : If you remove cash, then a
person could have to lose after having so many bummers come to them. This can
easily be solved by fixing how many cigarettes a person could give before
disappearing from the map to bummers. The "pack-owner" can set the number to 5
if in a good mood, after being bummed five times, he disappears from the app
for that day or something.

Though it's amazing how prices vary: A pack here is about two bucks.. And, as
you might have imagined, when there's a difference of potential, current
flows: There's contraband and people smuggling cigarettes from here to Europe
(France, especially). The average pure profit is 1,200 euros a trip (after
accounting for all expenses, room, plane tickets, nights out...).

~~~
corin_
I'd only feel insulted if it's someone I know who offers me cash - and even
then it's only in a "dude what the fuck, why would I take your money" way
that's forgotten 10 seconds after we light up.

In all other cases I much prefer when people offer to pay for a cigarette,
even though I've never taken their money.

~~~
Jugurtha
Yeah .. It's weird, The Psychology of Bumming (c) (I can see Norvig's future
"Teach Yourself How To Bum in Ten Years" or ESR's "How to Become a Bummer").

But in all seriousness, I get your point: It's not that you want their money,
just want the gesture.

It happened I paid for their coffee, or gave a gum. Or proposed to buy it (for
half of the pack's price). Reciprocity.

On another note, there's an amazing book by Robert Cialdini called "Influence:
Science and Practice" (the old one, not the new) which should appeal to
hackers: It's about hacking people's brain.

It is _the_ greatest book I've read on the matter: All empirical data.

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ErsatzVerkehr
When your only tool is "Let's build an App for that"...

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gedrap
While it's an interesting idea (and I know the pain!) the problem is that you
are out for a smoke for max 10 minutes. So there should be quite a lot of
active users from the start, otherwise you check once, twice, no one is out
there, forget it. Unless some people try to make some money of it using this
app, by selling extremely overpriced cigarettes.

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whiddershins
You could also try a credit based system. Every time someone gives away a
cigarette (which I would always do when I smoked) they earn a credit that
allows them to bum one from other participants in the future.

You could let people go "negative credit" too, and let other smokers choose a
threshold below which they won't accept requests from moochers. "Man if
someone is at -10 he should just buy a pack and give something back"

Then, when you are "burdened" with a pack, you can give them away, since you
were probably going to throw it out anyway, and happily bum-a-smoke 18 times
in the future before buying a new pack.

This avoids many of the legal and payment processing problems you might run in
to if money is changing hands.

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skel_
This really feels like a solution to a problem that doesn't exist. Feel
ashamed when asking strangers for a cigarette? Then don't ask them. Or offer
them money. Or do it anyway and just deal with it. Or just buy your own pack
of cigarettes.

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jjjeffrey
I was once in a situation where I was forced to bum smokes for several days
while essentially living at an international airport (forced as in it was the
only way I could smoke during that time). It was pretty scary, especially at
first, but it led to some surprisingly amazing experiences. Learning how to
bum a smoke (and really, the generalized skills that went into that) was one
of the most beneficial things I've learned in life.

(Don't interpret this as me recommending smoking. Worst. Habit. Ever.)

~~~
corin_
Out of interest why couldn't you buy cigarettes? Availability, laws, lack of
money or other?

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shocks
Perhaps this idea could be applied to a different commodity? One people are
somewhat willing to travel for, this solves the density problem.

Also, I feel like we shouldn't be encouraging smoking. I feel like an app such
as this would mostly be used by underage smokers…

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antihero
I dislike this. Bumming a cigarette is a social thing and has lead to meeting
several friends.

~~~
whiddershins
would this reduce the social aspect, or actually increase it, by reducing fear
of rejection you might end up interacting with all sorts of people you
wouldn't normally contact to ask for a cigarette

~~~
antihero
I'm not sure what this fear of rejection is. Usually if you're bumming a smoke
you're already a bit pissed.

