Why Amazon Coins are worse than gift cards or cash
Amazon launched Coins recently, a virtual in-store currency similar to Microsoft Points or the Steam Wallet. Coins can be purchased directly on Amazon in chunks of 500 or more. Coins are linked to the value of the Dollar so that 100 coins equal 1 Dollar or 100 cent. That's easier to remember than Microsoft's system where 80 points equaled a Dollar.
Coins are currently discounted by up to ten percent depending on how many you buy. If you buy 500 coins you save $0.20 or 4% while a purchase of 10,000 coins saves $10 or 10%. It is not clear if this discount will remain in effect or if it is an initial offer to get Amazon customers to buy coins.
Once you have purchased coins you can spend them on Amazon. But, and that is a big one, only on Kindle Fire apps, games, and in-app items on the Amazon website or on the Kindle Fire. You can't use Coins for other purchases on the Amazon Marketplace including other virtual goods such as ebooks or mp3. That's different from gift cards and cash money as both do not have those restrictions.
Coins do not expire and have no fees associated with them, just like gift cards. While you can trade gift cards, you are not allowed to trade coins and cannot exchange them back into real money.
Coins cannot be resold, transferred for value, redeemed for cash or applied to any other account, except to the extent required by law
Why would anyone want to buy coins if they can as easily purchase the goods with cash money? The only incentive is the discount that you get currently when you buy coins. If you buy coins for $90 you get 10,000 which effectively means that you will spend 10% less on purchases if you spend all coins on it.
Usually though that won't happen. You either spend less, so that you end up with coins in your wallet that do not have any real value for you unless you are sure you will make additional purchases in the future, or you spend more, in which case you need to stock up on coins to make the payment.
Since you cannot use coins for anything else, they are dead weight so to speak as soon as you buy them.
Buying with coins on Amazon
Notes
- Amazon is giving away 500 Coins to U.S. Kindle Fire owners in a promotion. These coins expire one year after they have been given to the customer which is different from coins you purchase.
- Note that tax on items that you purchase with coins is not shown directly on the product page. You may end up having to pay more coins than you have because of taxes.
- Coins that you have purchased cannot be returned.
Martin, I would appreciate that you do not censor this post, as it’s informative writing.
Onur, there is a misleading statement “[…] GIFs are animated images …”. No, obviously you don’t seem to have take much notice of what you were told back in March regarding; Graphics Interchange Format (GIF).
For example, https://www.ghacks.net/2023/03/31/whats-gif-explanation-and-how-to-use-it/#comment-4562919 (if you had read my replies within that thread, you might have learnt something useful). I even mentioned, “GIF intrinsically supports animated images (GIF89a)”.
You linked to said article, [Related: …] within this article, but have somehow failed to take onboard what support you were given by several more knowledgeable people.
If you used AI to help write this article, it has failed miserably.
AI is stupid, and it will not get any better if we really know how this all works. Prove me wrong.. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4IYl1sTIOHI
Martin, [#comment-4569908] is only meant to be in: [https://www.ghacks.net/2023/07/09/how-to-send-gifs-on-iphone-two-different-ways/]. Whereas it appears duplicated in several recent random low-quality non relevant articles.
Obviously it [#comment-4569908] was posted: 9 July 2023. Long before this thread even existed… your database is falling over. Those comments are supposed to have unique ID values. It shouldn’t be possible to duplicate the post ID, if the database had referential integrity.
Don’t tell me!
Ghacks wants the state to step in for STATE-MANDATED associations to save jobs!!!
Bring in the dictatorship!!!
And screw Rreedom of Association – too radical for Ghacks maybe
GateKeeper ?
That’s called “appointing” businesses to do the state’s dirty work!!!!!
But the article says itself that those appointed were not happy – implying they had not choice!!!!!!
@The Dark Lady,
@KeZa,
@Database failure,
@Howard Pearce,
@Howard Allan Pearce,
Note: I replaced the quoted URI scheme: https:// with “>>” and posted.
The current ghacks.net is owned by “Softonic International S.A.” (sold by Martin in October 2019), and due to the fate of M&A, ghacks.net has changed in quality.
>> ghacks.net/2023/09/02/microsoft-is-removing-wordpad-from-windows/#comment-4573130
Many Authors of bloggers and advertisers certified by Softonic have joined the site, and the site is full of articles aimed at advertising and clickbait.
>> ghacks.net/2023/08/31/in-windows-11-the-line-between-legitimate-and-adware-becomes-increasingly-blurred/#comment-4573117
As it stands, except for articles by Martin Brinkmann, Mike Turcotte, and Ashwin, they are low quality, unhelpful, and even vicious. It is better not to read those articles.
How to display only articles by a specific author:
Added line to My filters in uBlock Origin: ghacks.net##.hentry,.home-posts,.home-category-post:not(:has-text(/Martin Brinkmann|Mike Turcotte|Ashwin/))
>> ghacks.net/2023/09/01/windows-11-development-overview-of-the-august-2023-changes/#comment-4573033
By the way, if you use an RSS reader, you can track exactly where your comments are (I’m an iPad user, so I use “Feedly Classic”, but for Windows I prefer the desktop app “RSS Guard”).
RSS Guard: Feed reader which supports RSS/ATOM/JSON and many web-based feed services.
>> github.com/martinrotter/rssguard#readme
We all live in digital surveillance glass houses under scrutiny of evil people because of people like Musk. It’s only fair that he takes his turn.
“Operating systems will be required to let the user choose the browser, virtual assistant and search engine of their choice. Microsoft cannot force users to use Bing or Edge. Apple will have to open up its iOS operating system to allow third-party app stores, aka allow sideloading of apps. Google, on the other hand, will need to provide users with the ability to uninstall preloaded apps (bloatware) from Android devices. Online services will need to allow users to unsubscribe from their platform easily. Gatekeepers need to provide interoperability with third-parties that offer similar services.”
Wonderful ! Let’s hope they’ll comply with that law more than they are doing with the GDPR.