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.
Gift cards are bad when one is exchanging gifts, but can be really nice for out of the blue/thank you/etc things. Just make sure you know the person will use it. For example, don't give a Starbucks gift card to a Dunks drinker because it's "better coffee," the person drinks Dunks for a reason, and it's that Starbucks also tastes like a dirty asshole, so why would I pay slightly more for it?