Gift cards - they suck, folks. I don't get the point of gift cards as a standalone gift for someone. Like, if someone gets me a $25 gift card and I get them a $25 gift card then what the fuck was the point?? We're comfortably sitting at a net zero exchange, we could've just kept our cash and been better off. All we've done at that point is limit where we can spend our money to a single location. If you bought one of those Visa Vanilla cards, congratulations you just paid an activation fee to give them money, but wooptiedoo they can spend it whereverrrrrr. W H Y?
To make matters worse, there were about $3 B I L L I O N in unused gift cards last year. That's recorded as breakage revenue after enough time has lapsed to get the liability off the balance sheet too. That's free fucking revenue that no one provided services or goods for. W H Y A R E W E D O I N G T H I S?
WHAT'S THE FUCKING POINT? THEY'RE JUST SO VAPID AND MEANINGLESS, I CAN'T FUCKING STAND IT. OH MY GOD.
I think the idea is if someone just hands me 25 bucks I may be a lazy dumbass and just spend it on beer or fast food or some boring shit.
If someone hands me a gift card to some store that sells unique shit I’m not locked into “treating myself” to something but still have some choice in what I get. Like, hey bathbombs are nice but I probably wouldn’t have gotten one unless you gave me that Lush gift card, but I hate lavender shampoo so I’m glad you didn’t just buy me that.