My Cheesy Side

It doesn't matter if you do all the error checking in the world, or if you have the most beautiful graphics, if your site or application design isn't usable, it's not going to do well. Get input and advice on usability and user interface issues here.

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Chris Corbyn
Breakbeat Nuttzer
Posts: 13098
Joined: Wed Mar 24, 2004 7:57 am
Location: Melbourne, Australia

Post by Chris Corbyn »

Those offers aren't free. They force you to subscribe to something you have to pay for (such as AOL!!!) and then they add you to an extremely long list of people waiting. Each subscription gets the company running the promotion about a dollar or something... maybe less. They then collect all the dollars to buy the product but of course need to have their own healthy cut of the money. That means for something that costs about $100 they'd need 200 subscriptions so if you're at the bottom of a list of 3,000 people thats 200 * 3000 = 600000 subscriptions before you actually get your item. OK, you *do* get it but you signed up for AOL or whatever and 3 years later your product arrived. I keep away from these promos.
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Ambush Commander
DevNet Master
Posts: 3698
Joined: Mon Oct 25, 2004 9:29 pm
Location: New Jersey, US

Post by Ambush Commander »

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Chris Corbyn
Breakbeat Nuttzer
Posts: 13098
Joined: Wed Mar 24, 2004 7:57 am
Location: Melbourne, Australia

Post by Chris Corbyn »

Ambush Commander wrote:Pyramid scheme?
Yes that's the actual term for it thanks :) There have been documentaries about this in the UK years ago. I always thought it was pretty well known.

Sorry to bring it up here scottayy but it is quite true. You can see it straight away. Take macminigiveaway.co.uk. They say give us your email address and we'll place you on the list for a free mac mini. You then receive and email that says click here to get your mac. You click the link only to be present by a page that says "Take out at least one subscription for this list and your name will be placed in the list". You imagine how much the subscription costs you over the amount of time you wait for 600000 other people to sign up and waste a load of money too.
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