J.C. Penney tried this. It's become a textbook case study in retail management as to how not to run a retail store. Unfortunately, the "feeling of getting a bargain" is a powerful psychological motivator to purchase; treating customers like rational people is not.

That's why Tesla is failing so badly. They treat customers like rational human beings and don't give "incentives" and "cash back" and "0% financing".

And I guess that means that before coupons were invented, every company simply failed.

You're just a pleb who doesn't actually know what he wants nor understands game-ification.

"Game-ification" is marketing-speak for "how we fuck our customers, but good".

Basically, you're saying humans should be more rational than we are.

No, I'm saying that "marketing" makes us less rational than we are.

I hope this scam works, and that it will mean the death of coupons as an inducement.

For the first time, I agree with you on something.

But coupons will persist so long as they keep appealing to the wives of this world.

You stupid cocksucker. You just had to ruin the moment with your ugly hatred of women.

How about just stopping this manipulative fiction of "coupons".

1. Charge a fair price for your product.
2. Stop using "loyalty memberships" and coupons to track your customers.
3. Make your customer the customer and not some company that wants to buy data about your customers' buying habits.
4. Be competitive instead of predatory.
5. Charge a fair price for your product.
6. If you can offer me "cash back" on my purchase, then you can goddamn well lower the price.
7. Charge a fair price for your product.

End the ridiculous All-American practice of "coupons" and "customer loyalty" and the problem with fake coupons just disappears.

Authoritarianism. Following orders. Lack of creativity. Willing to accept the system even when it's wrong.

In other words, perfect preparation for your working life.

> And if broadband allows one in a thousand to take online classes

Let's takea look at your "if". As you recall, the FCC also just redefined the word "broadband" to mean service which costs $85-$105 per month. So about $1,000 per year, per person. You say "if one in a thousand" recipients, so 1,000 recipients at $1,000 per year each is $1 million per year. You think it's a good deal if you spend $1 million per year to encourage one guy to do online classes. Note that doesn't actually pay for the classes, you just hope that with faster internet he might take classes.

Did it occur to you that it would be cheaper to pay full tuition for TEN people who actually worked hard at school, proving that they want to be educated and they'll do the work in college? Certainly it didn't occur to you that the million bucks you want to spend is coming from my family, whre I AM struggling to pay for my own college while supporting the family, while my wife waits for her turn to go to school when we can afford it. Then we hope to save up for our daughter to go to school. No, you wouldn't want us, who work to pay for school, to be able to finish college. Much better that you take my paycheck and use it to pay for someone who doesn't work to stream multiple Netflix shows rather than the one they're watching right now.

Damn you guys are bad at math and logic. Friggin think about the costs and consequences of your decisions omce in a while.

Just for the record, the "Obamaphone" program has a name. It's called the "Lifeline Assistance Program" and was started in the 1980s by...Ronald Reagan. It has nothing to do with Obama.

https://www.fcc.gov/guides/lif...

http://www.snopes.com/politics...

http://gawker.com/5947133/the-...

I'm all for those guv'mint subsidized chastity belts.

Yeah, but the trick is figuring out a way to get the Duggars to wear them.

When people talk about "we haven't returned to the moon" [bfy.tw], it refers to the end of the Apollo program.

So, the trips we've made to the moon SINCE the Apollo program (the most recent was in 2013), just don't count? Why is that?

Further, you apparently posted that "Let Me Google That For You" link without looking at any of the search results that Google provided you. The first link is to a Quora discussion about manned space travel, the second is a CNN article about whether we still need to have men on the moon.

So are you suggesting that only manned missions count as space exploration?

But then... your somewhat hastily provided Google resultsreally start to get interesting:

We get a YouTube video about extraterristrials, two pages from "Above Top Secret" and a website that suggests, "NASA is hiding a very dark secret from us" and that's why we haven't been to the moon. Then there's a link to a young adult Transformers novel on Google books and then a site called "Educating Humanity" which tells us the reason we haven't sent men to the moon is...aliens.

The next time you think to post a "Let Me Google That For You" page, you might want to actually check the links it provides to make sure they don't make you look like a complete schmuck.

I reallize the a person is going to take what the market will pay them, but it is seriously difficult to imagine that they are worth that much.

Then you really won't want to read about David M. Zaslav, from the Discovery Network and The Learning Channel (former home of the Duggar family and Honey Boo Boo) who's total compensation in 2014 was...$156 million!

http://www.cnbc.com/id/1026872...

It is good to be an oligarch.

According to half the people here on Slashdot, the solution to any and all problems is to have another federal government department do _something_. Do what? Anything, really, as long as they do _something_. These guys are their great hope, people so dense they mail out live anthrax all over the place. Good luck getting them to solve all of your problems.

The fact that we went to the moon in "fucking 1969" is exactly the problem: it was a colossal waste of money. And the reason we haven't returned is the same reason: it still would be a colossal waste of money.

Um, we DID return, and multiple times.

Do you have any of your facts straight or do you just type with the seat of your pants?

First, you believed Columbus' voyages were "privately financed" and then you think we only went to the moon once. Give us a reason why anything else you say should be taken seriously if you can't get basic facts right.

For example, Columbus' Voyage was privately financed

And where do you think Queen Isabella got that money? She wasn't a tech billionaire. The funding came from the Spanish Royal Treasury. That means Spanish peasants paid for it and spoils of war paid for it and outright theft paid for it.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/...

You think that solid gold throne Queen Elizabeth sits on when she's wearing her Imperial Crown that contains 2,868 diamonds, 273 pearls, 17 sapphires, 11 emeralds, and 5 rubies was paid for by the money that the House of Windsor made through honest labor?

danger is that the US government is going to interfere with private space exploration through ridiculous regulations and restrictions.

That US government you speak of derisively got us to the moon and back in fucking 1969. While the mighty private sector is barely replicating what the Mercury Program did over half a century ago. It appears John Galt is not only unoriginal, but he's kind of a fuck-up too.

When Odysseus met his ghost in Hades later, Achilles the Dead thought that Achilles the Living had been a dickhead for thinking that.