

Jonathan's Card Experiments And Outcomes - robryan
http://sam.odio.com/2011/08/13/jonathans-card-experiments-and-outcomes/

======
Terretta
This post stil feels disingenuous. Part of the experiment? Odio came along and
scraped all the carbohydrates out of the Petrie dish, to give to ants
_outside_ the lab.

As pointed out by HN readers, _absolutely everyone here_ knew the experiment
could be broken, so nothing was proven or gained by doing what any of us could
have.

I was given an EcoSphere (a glass ball containing a supposedly self-sustaining
ecosystem) as a boy. For a kid, it's a fascinating experiment to see if it
works over time.

"One possible outcome" is to drop the glass ball on the floor. Not a
particularly inventive or interesting outcome, and if you do that in front of
a class of kids, you'll get the same reactions.

A lot of people were enjoying being kids again, watching the glass ball's
energy supply surge and fall, till Odio broke open the EcoSphere protesting
that's valid science too. In a large enough classroom, there's always at least
one.

~~~
Terretta
Addendum – Came back at the end of the day to add this clarification:

Nothing in Sam's comments about this lead me to believe he's a bad guy, just
that he's missing something about this particular scenario. On the contrary,
spotting rules begging for breaking is a very helpful trait for an
entrepreneur – as most here know, the YC questionnaire asks for examples of
"hacking the system for your own gain". (Though the PG "no jerks" rule[1]
implies hacking that's not at someone else's expense.)

”There's always one“ who's constantly challenging conventions, and when that
one zeros in on the line between audacious and antisocial, 20 years later he
often winds up running things.

For more human background, this Washington Business Journal profiles the Odio
brothers.[2]

1\. <http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=1632477>

2\.
[http://www.bizjournals.com/washington/stories/2010/10/11/foc...](http://www.bizjournals.com/washington/stories/2010/10/11/focus1.html)

------
philk
I know this is going to be unpopular and I know Sam has been remarkably tone
deaf[1] when it comes to dealing with people but I'm disturbed by how much
damage one stupid, somewhat douchey action is going to do his reputation.

[1] Yes, and even this latest pseudo-apology is poorly handled. He should have
just stuck to a simple _"didn't think that through, sorry to those I've
offended, I've cancelled the auction and will return the money to any
starbucks card Jonathan nominates"_ message but sometimes it can be hard to
admit you've screwed up, particularly when you're getting a kicking for it.

~~~
TillE
Well, it's a good lesson in thinking about the consequences of your actions
before you act. What you choose to do matters.

Not sure that would've helped in this case, though, since Odio still doesn't
seem to get it.

~~~
equalarrow
Agreed. I felt like his post still seems to talk about the experiment as a
whole and his action in the experiment vs. the 'why'.

I felt immediately that I got the why and a co-worker and I used two drinks on
the card. We talked about it and the concept of the goodwill behind it. We
definitely didn't feel like yuppie developers and we talked more about how
different the world would be if more things were like this. Even about
startups along these lines and what bigger ideas like these could change the
world. Yes, a fantasy, but we felt that's what this was about.

Anyway, Odio's OP felt very much like business as usual in a cynical world vs.
JC's actually doing something positive (even if it is just yuppie coffee).
Odio's recent apology seems hollow and in my mind the damage has been done.

------
Tichy
I must say, I can relate. The discussion almost sounds as if Jonathan's card
would have saved the world (transformed us all into happy altruists, drinking
free coffee ever after) if only Sam hadn't ruined it.

Maybe the "hack" was not such a good idea after all, but I am willing to
believe that it was not done in a mean spirit, but simply to experiment.

Come to think of it, perhaps in this way the whole experiment (Card+iPad hack)
brings out other, more ugly facets of humans than the desired altruism. Like
the tendency to gang up on other people - and sometimes people who want to
make the world a better place are the most aggressive ones.

~~~
overgard
I do think you have a good point with the ugliness of ganging up on this guy.

My feeling is: if this was actually an "experiment", as people claimed -- and
not some lame attempt at proving people are really fluffy teddy bears inside
-- then what happens in context of that experiment should stay in that
context. We shouldn't be making stabs at this guy's character for doing
something that was basically part of the game.

The experiment was asking "what will happen if we do this". We got our answer:
"someone will take advantage of it". At least the guy that took advantage of
it was willing to fess up, and we all (should have) learned something.

------
DevX101
Without enforcement of the social contract, society would quickly collapse, or
transform from something very different from it is today. We all want to
believe that people are all good, but the sad truth is we're not...at least,
not all of us. And it only takes a few renegades to disrupt this whole thing
we call society in the absence of enforcement.

I don't ascribe any particular moral judgment on Odio. He was a part of the
experiment and his actions only confirmed my belief that any exploitable
system will be exploited.

An interesting additional outcome from this social experiment to me was how
'the community' reacted to Odio. Like adultery, what Odio did was one of those
rules that he wasn't _supposed_ to do, but he did anyways. We can't throw
people in jail for cheating on their wives. So what do we do and have done for
thousands of years? We shame them. And that's exactly what's been happening to
Odio here and I'm assuming on Facebook too.

~~~
lotharbot
> Without enforcement of the social contract, society would quickly collapse

When you're dealing with strangers' money, an unspoken "social contract" is
_entirely inadequate_. You need an explicit contract, real enforcement, and
oversight. This is why charities have things like mission statements,
operational guidelines, and independent audits, and why the law gets involved
when there's misappropriation of funds. This is why we have things like
Charity Navigator.

When you don't have those things, you get a situation like this -- funds get
directed to causes the donors did not intend. As misappropriations go, this
one was relatively tame; rather than giving coffee money to starving children,
someone might use "feed the children" money to bomb a bus in the Middle East,
or "stand up for the Constitution" money to fund McVeigh type domestic
terrorism.

Some sort of abuse was inevitable with the way Jonathan's Card was set up. I'm
sad that Sam chose to abuse it, since he's a valued member of this community
and it sucks to see him alienate so many. But I'm also glad that he's the one
who abused it, as many others would've actually bought themselves an iPad
instead of sending the money on to charity.

------
trotsky
I'm sure that this outcome was inevitable, even if Sam had never been born. I
even think there are a few good lessons here. If everyone managed to calm down
a bit we might even come out better off.

I'm pretty sure it looked like the card had been running for a good while,
maybe a few weeks, before it went viral. It looked like it was working out
pretty well. A few hours in, I checked out the twitter feed again and it was a
mad house. $30 would show up one minute and be gone the next, donors were
getting thanked long after the money was spent, and people were chatting about
how you could turn it into a money laundering scheme or if it was all gorilla
marketing. I imagined people rushing up to the counter shoving their phone at
the barista before it got emptied again. It felt as unsustainable as a
politician on a coke binge.

Now I'm sure lots of you didn't see it that way, and I'm not saying I'm right.
But it was that same feeling that made me feel like throwing a wrench in the
gears somehow, and I'm sure I'm not completely alone. Internet wisdom says
you're pretty lucky it didn't end up with someone taking the money, loudly and
publicly donating it to the KKK then inviting half of 4chan over to rub it all
in.

One insight might be that wild, unchecked growth can end up really hurting
things. I wonder if it was going a fair bit slower would Sam have bothered? Or
maybe he'd have just gotten $70 and that would have felt like an easier thing
to just shrug off. Maybe Jonathan would have split it into a few cards, so it
could all be a little less chaotic and more personal. For me I associate that
pretty strongly with the 90's tech boom. My friends worked at netscape and my
gf at a yahoo purchase and people were paper loaded. The vibe was sketchy but
it all rubbed off and I left a profitable old school startup for what turned
out to be a worsening series of disasters culminating with watching $260M get
turned into a $20M firesale with nothing much to show for it. And predictably
the place with real, lame customers managed to make it through the downturn
without laying anyone off.

Crazy growth can feel amazing but it can also make you lose sight of things,
and the psychology of a crash can be that much worse. Switching gears, society
operates within a complex system of morals, laws and customs. Those aren't
symbols of the weakness of humanity - I think they show our ability to
organize and keep our faults in check, allowing us to achieve more together.

Most rules and disincentives exist to help good people stay good. The lock on
my neighbors door wouldn't stop a determined burglar, but if it wasn't there
people would get nosy from time to time and sneak in guiltily. Jonathan's card
looked to expose a bit of whimsical generosity and faith in humanity. But with
no checks in place and a growing volume of cash it instead became a test. With
one person able to fail the test for everyone it was practically inevitable
that it all would end in tears.

I think you could see the experiment as a pretty decent success. Pretty much
everyone turned out to be good, even the great villain seems more good and
misguided than evil to me, I believe his plan really was to help folks who
don't have enough. Plus scumbags don't stick around apologizing and asking
where the money should go.It'd be easy to turn this story from a tragedy to a
triumph. The best way to demonstrate people's continued faith in humanity and
generosity would be to come back with just as much positive energy.

It was classed as an experiment, and you shook out a bug. Maybe if you could
retain the fun and spirit but with a bit of a safety net. Say two cards
existed one getting donations and transferring manageable amounts to the
public card every few minutes. Maybe encourage a picture or thought from
people who got a cup, just to humanize it a bit and make a few connections
while discouraging abuse.

(PS I hate starbucks)

~~~
niklas_a
Of course, there is always a bully that will ruin the fun for everyone. The
experiment showed that the bully was Sam Odio.

------
pathik
Well, as someone tweeted, "Odio is just another variable in the experiment".

It wasn't really a fair experiment if you wanted the outcome to be positive.
This is how it works. There might have been many who were gaming it; Odio is
facing the backlash only because he admitted to it.

~~~
raganwald
There are two different things to judge here, and your comment appears to
conflate them. First, we can judge whether Sam’s action was “Part of the
experiment.” Second, we can judge whether Sam’s action was repugnant.

I think that it is possible to believe that Sam’s action was part of the
experiment and also repugnant.

~~~
chrischen
But I'm sure Sam's actions were contingent on it being an open experiment. Had
Jonathan openly requested people not scrape the service do you think Sam would
have broken that request to prove a point?

It would only have been repugnant if Jonathan requested people not to do what
Sam did. But the game had no rules and what is deemed a good or bad outcome is
purely subjective. Who's to say free coffee for some is better than charity
with this _experiment_?

Just because the majority dream this specific experiment to be something that
it isn't doesn't mean someone who comes along and dashes those dreams is an
asshole.

If you want his actions to be deemed repugnant, then setup a new Jonathan's
Card experiment, define the rules the way you want with the no-scraping
clause. Then wait until Sam breaks those rules. Then you can call his actions
repugnant.

EDIT: I'll admit it's probably not the nicest thing to do if he knew that
people (wrongly) assumed their donated money would go to buying coffee for
others. But the risks were clearly defined and anyone donating money _should_
have realized that their money is actually going to the experiment, and not
necessarily to buying coffee for someone.

~~~
raganwald
If I do business with you and I’m an asshole, is my moral defence really that
you should have realized I would be an asshole?

We have to disentangle asshole/nice guy from legal/illegal. Being an asshole
in business is legal. But that doesn’t mean it’s not _repugnant_. Sure, we can
say that Sam has not broken Jonathan’s law, and we can argue that he doesn’t
need to reverse his transactions legally.

We can also argue that he was or was not acting like an asshole. Perhaps he
wasn’t. But the question of whether his actions were in accordance with the
“rules of the game” has very little bearing on whether they are repugnant.

~~~
chrischen
If you do business with me, and you're an asshole, your moral defense can be
that you didn't know you were being an asshole. I'd personally give you the
benefit of the doubt. Of course the next time you do the same thing it'll be
clear.

>But the question of whether his actions were in accordance with the “rules of
the game” has very little bearing on whether they are repugnant.

If you break an explicit rule or request, then it's clear that you _knew_ you
were being an asshole, doing things other people don't want. When that rule is
not explicit, it's hard to say if you knew you were being an asshole. The
rules weren't explicit, and could have very easily specified not to scrape.

If Sam took advantage of anyone it would have been naive experiment
participants who donated money under the false assumption it would be used for
a specific purpose. But even then, Sam's actions could be interpreted as Robin
Hood-esque by some.

There is _NO DOUBT,_ from the view point of the supposed victims that Sam's
actions are repugnant because they go against what they wished, but so did the
people who Robin Hood robbed from I bet. However, from a more global
perspective, who's to say they're repugnant? Assume some of that Stark Card
money actually reached some unfortunate children in the third world and made
their lives slightly better... Would a non-victim really believe that to be a
worse appropriation of that money than buying coffee for some first-world
person (assuming the money actually reached those kids)? Many would argue that
is a better use of the money, regardless of what the original experiment
participants expected the money to be used for, because the experiment
participants wrongly assumed in the first place.

------
shiven
It seems like Freshplum is a YC company and what Odio has done clearly puts
him over and across the "No Assholes" rule that pg talks about.

(I don't know how that correlates contextually, but I feel there should be a
connection).

Regardless, Odio acted like an utter douchebag, IMHO. And he is just making it
worse with his un-apology apologies.

------
andrewcooke
here's a free tip: apologies should be near the start and unqualified. put the
self-justification and excuses afterwards.

this reads like he's working for airbnb.

~~~
wisty
Still, it works. The tone here has gone from "Sam eats babies alive" to "Sam
was wrong, and maybe committed a crime, but he's was honest about it, and
people are taking it _way_ out of proportion".

A little more "I understand now why so many people were pissed off", and a
little less "someone else would have done it" would work better, but maybe
he's writing what he thinks, and not just what he thinks the best PR move
would be. It's hard to honestly admit you were wrong.

------
flocial
According to the other post (Q&A), if Jonathan reported it as theft it would
become a police matter. I think that sums it up in moral terms. If he bought
himself $625 of coffee probably not. A nasty prosecutor might treat each cash
transfer as a separate case of wire fraud.

At the end of the day I just ask myself "what the hell was that about?" and
the idea of donating an iPad to the poor is the most idiotic use of diverted
coffee money. With all that philosophy you're going to give one kid an iPad
and add to the bottomline of one of the richest corporations in the world.
Much better than strangers buying each other coffee. Way to change the world.

~~~
darklajid
Are you sure that you followed the whole story?

"With all that philosophy you're going to give one kid an iPad and add to the
bottomline of one of the richest corporations in the world." seems to indicate
that you believe that he's buying (or bought) an iPad to send it off to the
3rd world. That's - erm - quite wrong.

From all I can tell he

\- wrote a script to tell him that more than $ X is on the card

\- transfer money to a gift card by going to the counter (he was sitting in a
StarBucks)

\- repeat - he said he got $625 (on two cards, it seems those top out at $500)

His initial blog post used the iPad 2 as link bait and said 'You could buy an
iPad with that cash!'. Afterwards he put these gift cards on eBay and claimed
he'd give the return to charity.

No iPad in sight. No money to Apple.

So - posts like yours are showing that this is a very emotional thing. It's
not helpful to jump in and bash people though, especially if you misunderstand
the situation. Correct me if I failed to understand you?

~~~
flocial
Thanks for the correction. The $500 card is going for $510 now. I've donated
to Save the Children before and no doubt it's a good cause. Can't argue that I
find this mildly offensive. I guess it's the violation of implicit rules of an
experiment that gives false hope on anonymously reciprocated altruism.

------
nhangen
I don't believe that he's sorry; I believe he's sorry that he was demonized.

He apologized, but kept the money. That's silly.

------
aymeric
This Sam Odio seems to have ruined his reputation in one hack.

~~~
pygy_
He made a name in one hack.

Now that he's in the spotlight, if he manages to leverage his new found fame,
the coffee incident will not matter much.

This post is already a step in the right direction.

~~~
hluska
With all die respect, I don't agree with you. Personally, in light of his
little hack, there is no way I would trust him or any company he is affiliated
with with my personal data. Heck, I can't even bring myself to tweet out a
direct link to his apology!

I wish him all the best, but I cannot become a customer!

------
tung
It's easy to lash Sam Odio, but doing so robs us of some really interesting
questions and answers.

First, why was the idea so popular to begin with? Collective funds aren't new,
nor is using Twitter as an API for tracking things in the real world. I don't
have any good guesses here.

Second, why has the community reacted so passionately? Even here on Hacker
News, mostly made up of people who put reason over emotion, have been
extremely upset. One: Having the money taken broke people's faith in the
greater good of humanity, so indignation naturally follows. Two: Diverting
funds was akin to telling people what to do, and nothing makes people angrier
than being forced to do things against their will.

People got very emotional over what, in perspective, isn't that much money.
$625 could get you an iPad... or a really lousy computer. If somebody had that
much stolen from a home break-in, that wouldn't even make local news, let
alone Hacker News. It's very curious. Also, it shows money not just as a means
of gaining goods and services, but as a way for people to make a mark on the
world; 'voting' for things they believe in by giving money, and denying it
from things they don't.

I don't approve of what Sam did, but it's better to step back and really see
what's going on here, rather than just being a mob about it.

~~~
blhack
Despite what the common perception of hackers is, we're actually _highly_
community driven. Look at places like HN. Look at the concept of the
hackerspace, or the computing clubs that preceded them.

Jonathan's card was in the same spirit as a hacker space, which is [bluntly]:
if we all pitch into this, and we're all nice about it, we can have something
that's pretty freaking cool.

Assume that instead of a starbucks card, we were talking about a hackerspace.
What Sam Odio did was the equivalent of showing up, then taking a bunch of the
the tools so that he could sell them and donate the money to homeless people.
To take it a step farther he then used his website to encourage other people
to do the same thing.

He tried to destroy the community (and succeeded). Hackers love communities,
and they tend to hate the people that destroy them.

~~~
gruseom
In fact, Sam Odio is a very community-minded person. He started the original
Hacker House in Palo Alto (<http://hackerhouse.bluwiki.com/>). He was an early
enthusiast for the Hacker Dojo in Mountain View
(<http://wiki.hackerdojo.com/w/page/25442/Incubees>). More significantly, when
other people were offering advice to an unemployed hacker, it was Sam who
offered his couch for a few weeks
(<http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=2827635>). I'll add a personal data
point: he once insisted on giving my co-founder and me a ride to the train
station even though it was completely out of his way and we had only met a few
minutes earlier. Trivial, yes, but trivial indicators of decency are often the
most reliable, especially when no one is watching.

My 2¢ is that Sam seems to process social norms in an unconventional way and
it occasionally gets him into a pickle. It also leads to good things. More
good than bad, I'd bet.

~~~
blhack
I'm sure he's a great person. I'm not speaking against his character, just
explaining why hackers would be upset about this.

~~~
gruseom
You did speak against his character. You said he tried to destroy a community.
That is not the action of a "great person".

You began from the assumption that Sam is not one of us, the " _highly_
community-driven" hackers. That's factually wrong. He's practically a
prototype of the community-minded hackerspace type which you extol.

I don't agree with you that people are upset because they care about
communities. A readier explanation is just garden-variety sanctimony. (I'm not
referring to your comment here, but others.)

------
mattdeboard
I'm about as uninterested as possible in hearing any more about this,
especially from Sam Odio.

------
dustineichler
You take a penny, you leave a penny. That's it, that's the unwritten rule.

------
niklas_a
He is very inconsistent. In his original post he states that "yuppies buying
yuppies coffee is uninteresting" and he goes on to say that he will instead
take all the money to his own card and donate it to charity.

Now he is saying that it was all just an experiment and he didn't understand
the outcome of his actions.

Which one is it gonna be Sam?

------
BSeward
This would have happened. The odds that it would have gone to a charity and
not to an iPad are pretty small.

I see a lot of irate comments on Jonathan's blog and the card's Facebook wall
from people who likely cannot appreciate the ease with which money could be
siphoned from this card. As far as I'm concerned Sam demonstrated an obvious
and intrinsic security hole and then owned up to it, but most of the
complaining crowd are convinced that his Evil Genius alone is the reason their
feel-goodery has to come to an end. The alternate conclusion I see is that
unknown agents would take advantage of this card until the experiment because
too unpleasant to continue and then no one would feel anything.

------
Tichy
I haven't followed J's card too closely, but wasn't it set up in a very
lenient way? How about creating a more "secure" system, for example without
the possibility to get money out of the card other than by drinking coffees?

------
molbioguy
The negative comments and name calling against Sam Odie is way out of line.
Jonathan made an "experiment" and launched it. It was wildly successful and he
got lots of data about how people react to the experimental situation he
created. Real experiments don't have outcomes that are pre-ordained. Let it
go. Learn and move on.

~~~
SoftwareMaven
This was never an experiment. Where was the hypothesis? Where was the control?
It was no more an experiment than me "experimenting" with Elbonian food is an
experiment.

To write off somebody's lack of understanding of social mores because "we were
all just ants" is disingenuous.

That said, this whole thing has actually been very interesting to watch from
the outside, and there is little doubt Odie made it far more interesting (if
not somewhat dishearening).

~~~
molbioguy
From a CNN article quoting Jonathan Stark:

 _"Jonathan's Card is an experiment in social sharing of physical goods using
digital currency on mobile phones ...," he wrote on his site._

------
wzdd
I completely agree with Sam's analysis here. People were not interested in the
experiment qua experiment, but were attached to one particular outcome. The
most interesting part, for me, was reading people's angry reactions
afterwards, phrased in the flowerly language of altriusm and community --
about a card that lets rich people buy overpriced coffee for other rich
people! (And let's be completely clear, if you are in the position either to
use Jonathan's card or have it used for you, you are almost certainly quite
well-off.)

Jonathan's Card was only succeeding temporarily because it was novel. People
behave differently around novel things. If these things worked long-term, then
there would be more of them around.

Edit: Downvotes without comments? Pretty uninspiring, HN.

~~~
glenra
You're missing the larger picture. Things like this _do_ work in small scale.
There are restaurants that let you "pay whatever you want"; there are
musicians that make a decent living selling music that one can get for free
either from them or from third parties. People obey traffic signals even when
nobody is around to enforce them. Churches survive despite the option of
stealing from the collection plate as it goes by. So this sort of thing _can_
work and in many places _does_ work. The main question here is whether one can
establish a social norm that encourages more cooperation than defection. For
that to work, defection has to garner shame and social disapproval. Hence the
reaction you see here.

> about a card that lets rich people buy overpriced coffee for other rich
> people! (And let's be completely clear, if you are in the position either to
> use Jonathan's card or have it used for you, you are almost certainly quite
> well-off.)

The exact thing being shared is irrelevant to the principles involved because
if you got it work, it could _scale_. Something that _starts_ by providing the
public good of coffee-sharing might grow to provide other public goods. If the
idea isn't strangled in its crib by a wise-ass.

Related analogy: _the internet_ might once have best been described as
something that _"lets overeducated rich people talk to other overeducated rich
people! (And let's be completely clear, if you are in the position to make use
of the internet or have it used for you, you are almost certainly quite well-
off.)"_

When I used to use "mapquest" to print directions or use "google" to find
answers to some question, that was once a novel thing that only strange nerdy
people did. But because the people who used it benefited back then, _everyone_
benefits today. Almost _every_ new innovation helps "the rich" or well-
connected before it helps the masses. At the time silk stockings were
invented, the queen of england was among the few who could afford them. TVs
were only for rich people when they were invented; ditto VCRs, radios,
microwave ovens, cars... So saying "this only helps well-off people!" as an
excuse to dismiss an innovation is something most nerds just intuitively
reject. So obviously wrong as to be not worth explaining. Hence (I suspect)
your downvotes.

~~~
wzdd
Thank you for the response! I was quite disappointed with the downvotes.

The examples you give do not convince me that my statement, "this only works
because it is novel", is not correct. People obey traffic signals out of habit
and / or fear that there may in fact be someone around (and even if they
didn't, it would be out of concern for safety, nothing to do with this give-
some-get-some principle); the "pay what you want" restaurant in London was a
month-long promotion (and it now charges again), and many other incarnations
struggle (see this NY Times article for information on several failed versions
of the scheme: <http://www.nytimes.com/2010/05/21/us/21free.html>); the vast
majority of church funding (millions of dollars!) does not come from
collection plates, and, even if it did, collection plates are dissimilar to
this example because everybody watches what you do with the plate -- the
social cost of stealing is far more obvious and pronounced (and, unlike
Jonathan's Card, taking from a collection plate is unequivocally stealing,
making the example even less relevant); and, finally, if there are musicians
who make "a decent living" out of selling free music (as opposed to a
profitable sideline) then I don't know of any. One counter example is
Radiohead's "In Rainbows", where 62% of the people downloading paid nothing at
all (see: [http://www.globalnerdy.com/2008/10/16/radioheads-in-
rainbows...](http://www.globalnerdy.com/2008/10/16/radioheads-in-rainbows-
experiment-was-a-success/)). The album still made money, due to Radiohead's
brand power, but they have not continued the experiment with new albums.

There are no good examples of a Jonathan's Card-type scheme working for any
length of time in the real world.

The problem with the response in general, and I think your response in
particular as well, is this quote from you:

> If the idea isn't strangled in its crib by a wise-ass.

The very fact that the idea _was_ strangled in its crib by a wise-ass, coupled
with the dearth of similar ideas out there in the real world, seems to
demonstrate fairly well that this is not a good idea.

You then give a bunch of examples of _expensive technology_ which eventually
became cheap technology (stockings, the Internet, cars, etc). This is a
completely unrelated to Jonathan's card -- nobody is going to deny that
expensive technologies become cheaper and, in doing so, benefit more people!
However, Jonathan's card doesn't rely on expensive technology -- it relies on
all participants being altruistic. And in the real world, given a sufficiently
large number of participants, not all of them will be altruistic. Jonathan's
Card is particularly bad in this respect because one "wise-ass" can take so
much value from the system -- contrast this with a hypothetical successful
musician putting her album online, where the worst that a single defector can
do is take the album for free.

~~~
glenra
In addition to Radiohead, I was thinking of Jonathan Coulton. Many of his
songs are _still_ available for free, but enough people choose to buy them or
to pay to see him perform live that he grossed half a million dollars last
year. For instance, here's one of his songs with three options: (1) buy the
song, (2) download the mp3 (without charge), (3) send a donation:

<http://www.jonathancoulton.com/wiki/Chiron_Beta_Prime>

> The very fact that the idea was strangled in its crib by a wise-ass, coupled
> with the dearth of similar ideas out there in the real world, seems to
> demonstrate fairly well that this is not a good idea.

Whether something "is a good idea" depends on context, which _changes_. This
wouldn't have been a good idea a few decades ago because the technology wasn't
there to enable it. As society gets wealthier and smarter we can afford to
support more free-riders and it becomes less and less important to rigorously
charge for stuff. "serve yourself" soda refills is an example, as is the
institution of unlimited free napkins, toilet paper, and use of the restroom.
Any of those could be crippled by wise-asses too.

> a hypothetical successful musician putting her album online, where the worst
> that a single defector can do is take the album for free.

Something a single defector can do that's worse than that would be to (1) take
the album for free, (2) put up a website encouraging others to do the same and
expressing contempt for all the suckers who choose to pay, (3) get this
website highly ranked on social media sites.

If that happened and nobody spoke out against it, it would significantly harm
the prospect of name-your-own-price albums. That's basically what happened
here.

~~~
wzdd
The examples you give are always so consistently different from Jonathan's
Card that I can't help but wonder if others feel the same way, with the same
examples, and that this disconnect between made-up examples and the reality of
Jonathan's Card is the cause of the outrage.

Jonathan's Card is nothing like free soda, free napkins, or free restroom
time. If someone sits in McDonald's and repeatedly takes all the napkins from
the dispenser, he will be asked to leave, and if he persists he may have to
deal with the police; the economic cost to McDonald's is minimal, and the
inconvenience to other customers minor and localised. Ditto someone choosing
to sit in the restroom all day, someone coming in and siphoning all the soda
out of a machine, etc. For each of these examples, there is minimal economic
cost or inconvenience to other patrons or the business involved, but a _lot_
of inconvenience for the defector -- he has to physically gather up the items,
sit in the restroom, etc, for minimal benefit to himself (what, he's going to
eBay a million napkins?)

Compared with this, the Jonathan's Card scam provided an effective income of
$130 per hour, at a cost of sitting in a comfy couch at Starbucks drinking
coffee. There is no immediate social censure (unlike what would happen to a
dedicated napkin-grabber) and indeed the defection is undetectable unless the
person involved chooses to blog about it. And, as hinted above, it is easy and
convenient to convert Starbucks gift cards into money.

These circumstances make defection a _lot_ more tempting. Let's recap:

1) No social censure (unless you decide to tell people)

2) The return is not just fungible but is easily converted into actual money

3) Low effort required

4) Low time investment

5) High per-hour return

The confluence of these factors makes Jonathan's Card a bad idea -- far worse
than free soda.

~~~
glenra
Part of what makes this particular defection so egregious, I think, is that he
didn't just _take_ the value in the card for his own use. Doing that might
almost be understandable, at least if the person doing it had (a) no better
income options, (b) few personal scruples. But going to the trouble of taking
the money just to piss it away on some random charity does _not_ constitute,
as you say, "getting a high per-hour return" on one's effort. In exchange for
destroying $650, all Sam got is the warm fuzzy of knowing he's "done something
nice" in giving to charity. Offset with the cold pricklies of knowing he's
"done something rotten" in stealing money from others for a use the donors
didn't intend, it's at best a wash. He inflicted a cost of $650 on others
without them _or him_ receiving any compensating benefit!

Which brings us back to the analogy: A committed vandal could _easily_ do
$130/hour worth of damage to random companies or people with minimal risk -
if, as Sam did, they had no intent of personally profitting from it. That's
what Sam was: a vandal, more than a thief. Like the teen who throws a rock
through a window when nobody is watching or destroys bathroom fixtures.

An awful lot of what makes civilization work is our tacit agreement to the
code immortalized by Wil Wheaton: "don't be a dick." The fact that you _can_
do something nasty and damaging to other people doesn't mean you _should_. The
fact that in some circumstance it's particularly _easy_ to steal from others
doesn't give you a moral obligation to do so; quite the reverse.

Some people are very trusting. They might leave doors unlocked or purses
unguarded. They choose to go out in public without armed guards and trust that
a random stranger on the street isn't going to be a mugger or rapist or
kidnapper.

When somebody who is especially trusting gets taken advantage of by someone
unscrupulous, people generally find that _especially_ worthy of criticism. The
first thing we think of isn't to blame the victim for being too trusting, but
to blame the scammer or thief for taking unfair advantage of trust.

------
alexandros
Since the context was human (online) society, the backlash is part of the
experiment too. Also, the experiment continues. I personally wonder if the
experiment will produce a regret reaction from the publicly non-cooperating
participant. For the moment it seems to be producing a 'deflect / damage
control' reaction.

~~~
darklajid
Feeling kind of weird being on the defensive side here, but - wouldn't you
consider

"For those who are hurt, angry, or frustrated with the role I played, I
sincerely apologize. Had I known so many were so invested in this, I would
have certainly done things differently."

a "regret outcome"? That's part of the blog entry and the 'sincerely
apologize' part is bold and hard to miss.

~~~
alexandros
Fair point. I must admit I only skimmed through. I guess the answer to my
question is yes.

------
akkartik
How does getting notified of a certain balance help take money off the card?
Does starbucks allow people to transfer money between gift cards?

~~~
pentryslampan
He just bought giftcards instead of coffee, then transferred it into one with
500 and another one with 125. The hack just read Jonathans open api and
started itunes when the balance reached a certain amount. There were better
hacks for displaying the account balance. Everyone knew you could buy
giftcards but i believe not many people did. I run a café too (not a
Starbux...) and we also have a plate with coins where you may take or leave
some. Buying giftcards with these isn't ok.

------
lubutu
Aside from all the hatred for Odio, in utilitarian terms this outcome may have
been better than if the experiment were just to continue. One can complain
that it's all about higher horses, but I doubt the children who may be fed or
clothed as a result will care.

I know, I know, Odio's moralising is irritating. But people are acting as
though he's taken our capability for altruism. I assure you, people are able
to be nice without Jonathan's instruction.

------
sliverstorm
_To be clear, my apology is intended to be complete, sincere, and unqualified.
I'm sorry_

Sorry enough to make a new card, and fill it with the money you lifted?

------
urbanjunkie
And once again, he demonstrates that he doesn't understand what's going on.

A lot of the backlash focuses on his dubious claim to the moral high ground.
I, once more, invite Sam to explain how much of his OWN time and money he
donates to charity. Being a moralising prick is easy, after all, when stacked
up against children starving in Somalia, almost any other use of money that
doesn't pertain to basic survival can be viewed as frivolous.

His apology post is basically nothing more than a "Sorry you all got upset
about it, if I'd know you cared that much I wouldn't have done it". In his
mind he hasn't really done anything wrong - he feels that if he doesn't agree
with the aims or the social value of something, he can suborn it to his own
ends.

There's nothing wrong with being nice to other people - it might not save the
world, but one of the issues we face in the so called developed nations is the
erosion of basic social courtesies - the ability to be polite to each other
and not act like dicks.

EDIT: I also stand by my offer to hook Sam up with some contacts in Uganda who
would love to have time with a geek to help with real problems.

------
Kwpolska
> In that light it would be hard to understand the negative reaction to my
> participation. After all, it's an experiment and isn't finding interesting
> new uses for the card fair-game? Even after Starbucks shut down the card,
> isn't the experiment living on? Why the outrage?

Because the card would likely still be alive if you wouldn't act like a dick?

> For those who are hurt, angry, or frustrated with the role I played, I
> sincerely apologize. Had I known so many were so invested in this, I would
> have certainly done things differently.

A hint for you: create Asshole's Card with the $625 you stole and continue the
experiment. You shall add even more funds and give some back to Jonathan
himself.

~~~
darklajid
While I disagree with his actions: His post was moderate, he apologized and
promised a longer reply and explanation in the future.

Please stop the name calling.

~~~
Thangorodrim
He did not apologize for his actions.

He apologized that silly emotional people got upset at the obvious outcome of
this entire stunt.

A sincere apology takes three words. When those three words are buried in
hundreds of words of qualifications and context its no longer an apology.

The entire thing is redolent of a condescending tone. Sam, you see, is a
scientist! Anyone who questioned his behavior is just an having an emotional
reaction and does not understand the _real_ world - where there is always a
Sam to piss in the well.

The thing is, most of use knew this already, and his demonstration did not
teach anyone anything other than about Sam's character.

EDIT: Oh, I don't care about the gift card. I am simply commenting on the
'apology.'

~~~
darklajid
Fair enough. I guess you can read that from the article.

For me, I can't see these things. Someone else already said that he should've
apologized first, unqualified - and I agree that this would make a difference.

On the other hand, I'm not sure if I'd have started like that - it feels
natural to me to explain first, reason about my actions and end with an
apology. We're not talking about a company here (see the AirBnB comparison),
we're talking about a random guy as far as I'm concerned.

Lastly: I guess a lot is getting lost in translation for me. Lots of advices
on this forum are hard to get for me, because they are about nuances of
English words, implied meanings, 'tone' and cultural rules. While it might
very well be possible that you/most of the posters and Sam are sharing the
same standards and therefor 'better' understand the content or see a subtext:
I cannot.

~~~
stock_toaster
> it feels natural to me to explain first, reason about my actions and end
> with an apology

Apologies that start with an explanation are very often more of a personal
justification (coping mechanism) than a real apology. It frames the
conversation in a way so as to reduce the cognitive dissonance between your
actions and the social norm you violated (reason for apology), as well as
reducing the discomfort in the act of apology.

It also makes people think you are apologizing to appease, instead of
expressing genuine regret.

------
napierzaza
It's nice that Odio gets to call the outcome on the experiment.

Secondly, is he still stealing money from it?

------
nestlequ1k
Would have been much funner if Odio just bought himself an ipad and used it to
write a detailed blog post about the glaring flaws with the premise of the
experiment. I would have respected that quite a bit. Instead he tried to
donate other people's money to charity. That takes the cake for douchbaggery.

I thought Jonathan's card idea was funny, but unbelievably stupid (in the
common tragic kind of way). Being morally outraged at the result reminds me of
those of you who like to say Communism should work in theory, then point the
finger after the mass murders, saying it could have been different if it
hadn't been for that one guy who ruined everything.

------
chrischen
If you hate Sam Odio for this, just ask yourself if you think Sam would still
have done it if Jonathan had explicitly requested people not to scrape it.
What Sam done was inevitable and no doubt crossed Jonathan's mind as a
possible outcome of the experiment (there was even an API to simplify the
process)...

If the answer is no, then it should be clear that there was no malice in Sam's
intent because it was clearly within the rules and clearly recognized by him
as so.

I'm sure lots of people are angry that they made donations assuming it would
go to the specific purpose of buying coffee for others, but the risks were
clear and the experiment rules were laid out. Granted, Sam probably knew this
and still appropriated the money to charity which was probably a bad move.

