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The barcode that launched a thousand scones. "Jonathan's Card" may have failed but the importance of small scale digital exchanges is only going to get more important in the future.
The Italians call it “caffe pagato”. In the US it’s referred to as “pay it forward”. 7-11 dubbed it “take-a-penny, leave-a-penny”. At Starbucks it was known as “Jonathan’s Card“… and it has died. Mobile app developer Jonathan Stark recently decided to help people all over the world buy each other coffee by publicly sharing the barcode for his Starbucks Card. For those unfamiliar with the concept, the Starbucks Card barcode allows you to pay for coffee by simply showing the cashier its image on your smart phone. Jonathan’s Card let anyone upload money to the account or use the jpeg of the barcode to pay for their own purchases as they saw fit. Thousands of people took Stark up on his offer, sharing (or borrowing) the wealth at their favorite locations. But on Friday August 12th, roughly five days after it was born, the card died. Starbucks, though reportedly rooting for the idea despite its violations of their user agreement, shut down the account after it was pillaged by hacker(s). Jonathan’s Card, an open forum for buying coffee and scones for strangers, didn’t last a week. Is the unfettered public sharing of funds simply unsuited to the digital world, or is the Starbucks failure just a bump on the road to a much more charitable future?
For those who didn’t read our earlier coverage on the Starbucks Card mobile app, here’s a 21 second video on how it works:
Italy’s espresso-obsessed culture led parts of the country to adopt the phenomenon known as caffe pagato or “paid coffee”. Patrons at an espresso bar purchase their own coffee and then pay for a few extra cups that the barista can dole out later to those who request it. You buy someone else’s coffee because you can, because it’s nice, and because one day you might be the guy asking the barista if there’s any caffe pagato left that day. Jonathan Stark realized a similar trend could easily be developed around the Starbucks Card barcode, as even a jpeg image of the code was enough to purchase goods at any of the 7000 or so franchise locations that took the form of payment. Jonathan’s Card was simple in implementation: you went to his website and downloaded the pic to your smart phone (worked fine on both Android and iOS). By checking a dedicated Twitter feed you could see what the approximate balance was on the card and either use it to help pay for your purchase or add more money. You could also donate through a link on Stark’s site.
People loved the concept. If you go to the Facebook page, or check out the hash tag on twitter (#jonathanscard) you see almost nothing but praise. As word of the experiment got around on the Internet, traffic on the card picked up, celebrities weighed in, and Starbucks execs started to take notice.
A small sample of the "traffic" on Jonathan's card. As the card grew in popularity, so did the size and frequency of donations.
Unfortunately, so did Sam Odio. Odio, not a bad guy, was nevertheless devious enough to devise a way to siphon money off Jonathan’s Card and move it to his own. He netted $625 from the (really basic) hack, used it to fuel two gift cards and auctioned those cards on eBay to help a charity. He then shared the information on how to hack the card to everyone who reads his blog. Dishonest? Yes. Evil? No. But it effectively killed Jonathan’s Card. Faced with the security breach, Starbucks contacted Stark, told him they were enforcing their user agreement to end the experiment and canceled the barcode at 7pm on Friday August 12th.
As sad as the end of Jonathan’s Card may be, the fallout has been illuminating. Another attempt, PayingIt4ward, was launched almost immediately, this time eliminating some of the openness (you have to donate at the counter) in hopes of closing off possible hacks. Hundreds of people say they are now continuing the experiment on their own – paying for coffee and small goods at various stores without using a barcode as an intermediary. Stark continues to tweet about his experiences paying for other people’s snacks, and a Google search will find you dozens of others who are either launching variations on the experiment or re-publishing their own experiments which began earlier than Stark’s.
Penny Arcade was one of several popular websites which covered Jonathan's Card and helped launch it into the limelight. Gabe (aka Mike Krahulik) was right: the card would die from abuse. But it was hacking, not user greed, which was its ultimate downfall.
Much of the coverage surrounding Jonathan’s Card has followed the same tired old lines of debate: is humanity on the whole more charitable than it is greedy? Will you always have more leachers than donors? Can the internet really be used to better the world?
That discussion bores me, especially as I think the internet has clearly proven itself to be an excellent means of fundraising. The Indian Ocean Tsunami raised hundreds of millions of dollars via the web, US politics is reshaping itself around online donations, and sites like Kickstarter are launching thousands of new ventures by leveraging internet charity.
What I find much more interesting are the lessons Jonathan’s Card teaches us about digital exchanges. The card didn’t fail because too many people took rather than gave. It didn’t fail because of Big Brother style intervention (according to Mashable, Starbucks was rooting for the concept). It failed because security sucked. Plain and simple.
The Starbucks mobile app isn’t eBay, it was never designed to be a (charitable) marketplace. Jonathan’s Card, however, should show us that there is both a desire and easy path to build such marketplaces. Starbucks could create a single, central, more secure version and launch it. Why not? It would attract customers and build a sense of community that would keep regular users coming back for more. Other retail businesses could do the same whether they are brick and mortar or digital storefronts. I’d gladly round up all my purchases to the next dollar on Amazon if I could put that money into a fund that other Prime customers could use. Pick your favorite store and ask an average customer, and I’m sure you’d find many people with similar sentiments.
Micro-scale charity is just one untapped potential when it comes to digital exchanges. What about people who wish to trade points/currency from various social media sites? There’s already a growing market for that in online gaming. Several sites allow you to track/exchange frequent flyer miles, too. Whatever real or virtual goods you can earn, there’s someone out there who wants to trade you for them, give you more, ask you to donate, or leverage your combined balance for group gain.
Jonathan’s Card is a good indication that such exchanges can work on a person to person level, a corporate sponsored level, or anywhere in between. I think it also hints that such exchanges are going to be a growing part of the online marketplace. Dollars for Yen, or Euros for Yuan – we’re used to those currency transactions. But what about points for ‘likes’ OR World of Warcraft ‘gold’ for +1 votes OR cash for a sense of community? Those kinds of new transactions are going to become more important parts of the digital market in the 21st Century. Organizing them, making them secure, and attracting users to them is big business. Jonathan’s Card wasn’t about charity, it was about opportunity. And there’s lots of it ready to be seized.
[image credits: Starbucks, Jonathan Stark, Penny Arcade (Krahulik & Holkins)]
[video credit: Starbucks]
[sources: Jonathan Stark]
Very naive because you can’t virtually shame people into doing what is right. If I had the knowledge I would have hacked this too just to teach them a lesson before somebody did even worse with it.
What I find more interesting is what this author’s comments tell us. Talk about a social comment. This guy hacks in & steals money & the author says it’s wrong, but not evil. I think the author’s view reflects part of our social problem. I’d say robbing someone is evil regardless of how you do it.
Assuming it was unhackable, this would be a wonderful thing. Especially if it cared over to actual necessities, I might decide to go ahead and buy a free meal for an impoverished fellow on the other side of the world. Avoids alot of inconvenience. But systems are not invincible so in it’s current state it is far from doable.
As for robbing someone, it is only evil depending on how you define it. For some people would say Robin Hood was robbing the rich to feed the poor.
If I’m dying of starvation, even though I do all I can to earn a meal, is it so wrong to steal from someone who has such an abundance that much of it goes to waste? Is it robbery in this case? Rather is it not the rich man who is robbing the poor, even if he earned it, it couldn’t have been by just means, because it is unjust that he denied another what he needs to keep what he doesn’t.
Even though it was technically his ‘property’, the poor man doesn’t deserve to have his hand chopped off.
As for hacking into this system, it was malicious, I will agree with you there. But robbery is not always bad. Unless you define robbery as depriving another of what he needs for your own unessential benefit.
The author’s comment bothered me as well. The majority of the article is fascinating and full of clever ideas. I wonder why you and I are so bothered by what to the author is an almost throw away remark. The stealing of the money seemed like a repudiation of the whole idea. The author does provide a solution, more security, however that doesn’t mean the person who took advantage of the security hole is right, should be rewarded by having the feeling of doing good. If anything he should be shown for the selfish scoundrel he is. Now I know why I’m angry his act is the “I’m doing good with the money I steal from you, because if I don’t steal it you will not use it for this particular good”. I truly despise that kind of thinking and acting.
I was merely trying to prove that “robbery” isn’t always bad.
As for whether it not it was good of him to steal it, who knows? He proved the weakness of the system, and helped a charity at the same time. But nevertheless he attacked a system that could have grown to be much more valuable then a simple 625 dollar donation.
Nothing is wholly bad, because any act you do will have positive consequences. Even if the only positive consequence is that you have learned to avoid being wronged in the future, in this case it was more then that. Obviously its the same with good intentions.
You see that he wasn’t merely saying, “I’m making better use of your money then you are, and therefore I deserve it more.” He was making several points.
Its simply ironic when you consider all the ‘do-gooder’ good karma theory that supports this starbucks idea. instead he expressed that it was the contrary, that they could actually do much, much better in the pursuit of good karma, by directly donating to charity.
But that is free will for you, which he violated, there are reasons we should avoid making choices for eachother. But I don’t think he was intending to choose for them, he meant to make a statement, or several.
I don’t agree with the “conditional” ethics, but everyone has a point of view. Rationalizing bad behavior. It seems to be the stuff we are made of these days.
You may not agree with “Conditional Ethics,” But ethics are always conditional whether you like it or not. What would you say if I decided to lock someone in a cell, and never let them go? Horrible right? But what if that person was a killer? Then we deprive him of his freedom. Being a killer is a condition.
Being a killer is a condition, as is being a thief. In each case we punish the individual in ways that would be wrong to punish an upright citizen. Whether the punishment is right or wrong is entirely conditional.
NOw would you agree that it is harmful to strike someone? THat violence is indeed wrong? What if someone strikes me, is it just as wrong for me to strike back for my own preservation? If striking is always wrong, I should be jailed for defending myself, or perhaps a child in need of rescuing, with equal punishment as the instigator.
Try to cite one ethic that isn’t conditional.
I think you are confusing the penalty with the ethics. I think stealing is wrong. What you do with the money you have stolen is irrelevant. Just because it’s Cyberspace doesn’t make it any less of an offense. To compare that with defending yourself just doesn’t wash in my book. I guess we will just have to disagree.
I hope we don’t have to disagree, it would better if we got to the bottom of this, if I am wrong I would be quite pleased, because then I will be better informed as a result.
So please explain to me why stealing is ALWAYS wrong, and unconditionally wrong, because I am blind to the fact, I do not understand why it is. Instead of leaving me in ignorance, inform me, so we are closer to being in agreement.
I guess the example I chose probably was bad, as the thief in this case was not defending anyone,on the surface at least.
I was merely providing evidence that at least some ethics are conditional, because we say it is justice to deprive one person of freedom, and injustice to deprive another. Freedom is indeed an ethic.
As for confusing the penalty with the ethics, how so? Isn’t penalty a subject of ethics? ISn’t penalty meant to uphold ethics, to restrain people from being unethical? And how do we justify penalizing someone? We use ethics to justify a penalty.
Thus I’m not confusing the two, penalty is not only a function of ethics but is defined as an ethic.
Tell me Cassie, if you were starving death, and noone was helping you, is it wrong to steal to survive?
Answer my question please, whether you disagree or not, would you steal if you had to survive, and would it be wrong?
Chopinzman, came a bit late to the article and subsequent debate, so apologies if I’m interfering, finding the topic interesting.
I’d like to think that I wouldn’t steal for myself, however if it came to my wife and if I had any children, there is no doubt I’d steal for them to survive.
I’d say that in the example that you gave, it wouldn’t be wrong for the person to steal, however it wouldn’t be right either. I don’t know how to describe it.
I think we have a bigger problem than “Rationalizing bad behavior.” and that is people seem to only view ethics in black and white, where in reality it is often shades of grey.
Maybe to change people’s mind set we need to start looking at crimes in context, instead of just the crime itself.
Thankyou for your input. And of course you’re right. And I would like to apologize to Cassie for seeming aggresive. Live and learn right?
I wasn’t trying to rationalize bad behavior, I don’t even want to debate that. I was just trying to say that nothing is black or white, so I understand completely when you say that it wouldnt be wrong, or right. I would bend to the latter in some extreme cases, but that’s irrelevant.
And yes, reality is totally grey, there’s no such thing as a perfect circle, or a perfectly straight line. This is because change is constant. When have you ever been perfectly happy, or sad? When have you sinned without some regret, some apology? When have you ever been generous without some little bit of attachment?
Crime is supposed to be looked at in context, that’s why we have juries, It’s impossible for a law to take into account every possible variable. Laws have to be general, as a result they aren’t always correct.
Hmm…I didn’t view it as robbery at all. People paid into the system with the understanding that anyone, at anytime, could take money out for themselves. Odio did that, just not for coffee. Hence he was dishonest. But to say he was a thief? Is the guy who buys a cafe latte on the Jonathan Card but never pays it back a robber? If so, what’s the point of caffe pagato?
Yes I expect that this will inspire similar, better endeavors. THere are a lot of people who simply like to share with others. Of course there are going to be a lot of leechers, people taking advantage of the system. But it will not be the same as leaving a hundred dollar bill in plain sight, intentionally. I expect donors will be able to choose certain qualifications for their donor. But these systems will fail if the approach is not extremely organized and defensible. In a way it should evolve hand in hand with social networking, so who actually know WHO you are sharing with, and can see that persons identity is in fact genuine, and not a scam.