Nothing in this world is free
I use Bank One, and it gives me free online bill payment. Freeeeee. It gives me the power to pay my bills online, I can even send out check to friends etc and its all free, but free is an oxymoron if there ever was on. Nothing in this world is ever free or easy, nothing. What Bank One does is, it credits my account the money on the day it mails the check, it doesnt matter when my friend or landlord cashes the check, the money is out of my account when check is mailed, that gives Bank One the use of the money until the cheque is cashed.
This is float money, money they loan to other people or give to their investment bankers, and day traders to double and quadrauple. You might think my 100$ check is inconsecuential but remember at the least it is 100 X 10000 customers = 1000000 a cool million, a cool million that Bank One has as a float because it provides a service for free.
The service was not free in the first palce, I used to pay 5$ a month for the convinience, what Bank One did was use the 5$ to pay off the development effort involved in building the application and then once it was paid off it deceided to call it free to increase the number of people participating and hence the float. This is a great tactic, I guess this is what they teach in business school or pay their CEOs the big bucks.
In the big picture what I feel is nothing in this world is free, not the Nigerian who promises to share 23 milion, the email chain that promises you that money will rain on you because Microsoft is tracking it or the buy one get one free. Even beware of discounts. This was one of the first lessons I learn when I came to the US, I arrived as an innocent student (ok not so innocent but still) to Georgia Tech, and first thing I noticed was those credit card signers, all you had to do for a free t shirt was sign up, that was easy, I gave them all my information (consider i had never seen a credit card, and a t shirt was still a t shirt) and patted myself on being able to get a free t shirt, later I learnt, one credit card too many is a headache you dont want, one finance charge could have bought me 50 t shirts of the axchange kind. The rate they promised me was for first 6 months only after which the rate would quadrapule and they were anyhow going to sell my address and other stuff to some marketing agency which would bombard me with junk mail.
Here is more stuff, remember the add that says get one month of internet service free, hhahaha, read the asterix that says it will be $44.99 after the first month, the cell phone guy who promises you 600 free minutes, but then doesnt add, if you talk to your friend for 600 mins, the company will bill you for 600 minutes and bill him for 600 too, einstien could solve the space time conundrum with that piece of math.
Anyhow lesson learnt, observe anything that is offered as free, there is always an angle to it, always an angle to it, always, if there is a 30% discount, it has already been marked up 70%. Nobody is doing anybody a favour, buy one get one free, its old stock, needs to be moved. There is a story of two stores across from each other, when ever one guy had a discount on something the other would drop it lower too, people loved that competition, ate it all up. Later they found a tunnel between the two shops, when ever they needed to get rid of something, they would play that game and between them get rid of the goods.
I digress as usual, basic point is never believe anybody or anything that says "I am giving you a good deal", dont believe any free money, its a scam, never trust a discount, always bargain.
Bargain eh!, I wish I could goto kroger or jewel and bargain, why do we take their prices for granted, there is always room for bargaining, I should try and see what happens. I bargain in all the small individual stores, but not at best buy or walmart walgreens etc, hmm never wondered thus, why do we always bargain in small stores but not in big stores, is it because they are not personal, or the decision maker is not at hand. Either way need to bargain. coming from a culture that functions on bargaining, I have come a long long way.
This is float money, money they loan to other people or give to their investment bankers, and day traders to double and quadrauple. You might think my 100$ check is inconsecuential but remember at the least it is 100 X 10000 customers = 1000000 a cool million, a cool million that Bank One has as a float because it provides a service for free.
The service was not free in the first palce, I used to pay 5$ a month for the convinience, what Bank One did was use the 5$ to pay off the development effort involved in building the application and then once it was paid off it deceided to call it free to increase the number of people participating and hence the float. This is a great tactic, I guess this is what they teach in business school or pay their CEOs the big bucks.
In the big picture what I feel is nothing in this world is free, not the Nigerian who promises to share 23 milion, the email chain that promises you that money will rain on you because Microsoft is tracking it or the buy one get one free. Even beware of discounts. This was one of the first lessons I learn when I came to the US, I arrived as an innocent student (ok not so innocent but still) to Georgia Tech, and first thing I noticed was those credit card signers, all you had to do for a free t shirt was sign up, that was easy, I gave them all my information (consider i had never seen a credit card, and a t shirt was still a t shirt) and patted myself on being able to get a free t shirt, later I learnt, one credit card too many is a headache you dont want, one finance charge could have bought me 50 t shirts of the axchange kind. The rate they promised me was for first 6 months only after which the rate would quadrapule and they were anyhow going to sell my address and other stuff to some marketing agency which would bombard me with junk mail.
Here is more stuff, remember the add that says get one month of internet service free, hhahaha, read the asterix that says it will be $44.99 after the first month, the cell phone guy who promises you 600 free minutes, but then doesnt add, if you talk to your friend for 600 mins, the company will bill you for 600 minutes and bill him for 600 too, einstien could solve the space time conundrum with that piece of math.
Anyhow lesson learnt, observe anything that is offered as free, there is always an angle to it, always an angle to it, always, if there is a 30% discount, it has already been marked up 70%. Nobody is doing anybody a favour, buy one get one free, its old stock, needs to be moved. There is a story of two stores across from each other, when ever one guy had a discount on something the other would drop it lower too, people loved that competition, ate it all up. Later they found a tunnel between the two shops, when ever they needed to get rid of something, they would play that game and between them get rid of the goods.
I digress as usual, basic point is never believe anybody or anything that says "I am giving you a good deal", dont believe any free money, its a scam, never trust a discount, always bargain.
Bargain eh!, I wish I could goto kroger or jewel and bargain, why do we take their prices for granted, there is always room for bargaining, I should try and see what happens. I bargain in all the small individual stores, but not at best buy or walmart walgreens etc, hmm never wondered thus, why do we always bargain in small stores but not in big stores, is it because they are not personal, or the decision maker is not at hand. Either way need to bargain. coming from a culture that functions on bargaining, I have come a long long way.
posted by adarsh adarsh at 9:23 PM
2 Comments:
Happy Birthday man!! The wishes are free :-)
I'm sure you didn't recognize me.. has been scores of years since we talked - this is Prakash from Timpany, AU etc...
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