Yeah, it's a terrible puzzle. That must be an awkward situation, opening a present like that, knowing someone spent a couple hundred dollars on something so silly and then having to thank them.
However, the whole part of this post about extortion is kind of silly. How many of these have been sold? A thousand or so? Yeah, that must be a very valuable database of information they're keeping. Any company looking to target a rich demographic could advertise at a country club. Why cook up a hairbrained scheme surrounding a puzzle?
I doubt their business model is based on selling personal information. If I had to guess, I'd say it's based on huge profit margins from selling a silly aluminum sphere.
Most likely it's based on the profit margins from selling you a series of silly puzzles and keeping you engaged in the 'Isis adventure' so they can sell you even more stuff. This explains the prizes, the availability of a second puzzle solution prize for which can only be collected if you have the first puzzle, etc. There will probably be N of these, should the first couple be successful. And for that business model, contact info is essential. The whole thing is closer to a sort of subscription game in which the lame puzzle is just a prop.
30,000 people who spent $200 on a toy puzzle is by no means a small number. Luxury goods purchases follow a power law, and the value of capturing a portion of the fat side of that curve is huge. If they're willing to spend $200 on a puzzle, imagine what they'd spend on something they perceive they need.
Dead on. Its $200 on a puzzle, which simultaneously shows that the person cares about this $200 more than their personal information, which is damn useful for marketing.
I don't really buy the list brokerage conspiracy theory. Sure, you can make money renting or selling your customer list... but not that much. We're talking pennies person. Compare that to how much you make selling a hunk of metal for $100+.
Nope, it's just a crappy puzzle from a company without a lot of respect for its customers.
I come from the call center / telemarketing business (don't worry, we aren't as evil as most ), and I can tell you first hand that "pennies per person" couldn't be further from the truth.
Names and numbers on their own are incredibly valuable.
Names and numbers that you know exactly the demographic they come from, are gold mines.
I can tell you that some run of the mill name and number can easily be worth $1.
Gauging the fact that he assumes their target audience is rich (which I doubt this is the case), we at least know it is a very specific type of people. This is as close to texas tea as it gets for telemarketers.
Are you talking about list rentals? Sorry, but I used to work in this industry too and you are way off.
First, you know hardly anything about these people. At best you have a guess about their income. You don't know age or occupation or education level. (Not to mention a large number of the names are probably bogus -- I would certainly fill out bogus data.) Realistically, you'd have to overlay it with data from other sources to make it usable to anyone besides, perhaps, other companies selling overpriced puzzles.
I can get much complete and valuable demographics for much less than $1 each. (Female C-Level executives in the marketing industry? $200 per thousand).
Like I said, it's not a conspiracy. It's just a junky puzzle.
I said, a run of the mill name and number could net you a dollar.
These names/numbers aren't. Granted lots of people use bogus names and numbers, but the vast majority aren't going to that purchase an item of this value.
Yes, before you say it, I realize that nobody here does, and nobody you know does, and blah blah blah.
In the real world, most people do. I wouldn't be in business if they didn't.
I'm going to go with a crappy response, from a clueless person.
The main problem in my mind is that the puzzle offers no feedback to the user that they are on the right track. For that matter it offers no feedback that they are on any track, right or wrong. It's just random motions with no particular motivation. Some kind of light, or bell, or even a plexiglass version so you could see the balls moving about inside would be better.
Poor guy, but I like his section on "4 key elements of a good puzzle." As I was reading it, I recalled the era of awful job interview brainteaser questions that were so ubiquitous until most HR departments started to ban them.
The parts about the puzzle are interesting. And it does indeed look a bit crappy.
The conspiracy theories and moaning about why they'd want your name and address is just silly. Companies like having contact details :/
When the author suggested they were selling the user database on to marketeers I thought I'd stumbled upon theonion.
Lets say they had a customer database of 1000 names, addresses, phone numbers. I'd expect they could sell that for £50 maximum. It doesn't make any economic sense whatsoever.
I don't think there's any conspiracy theory here; the article indicates that you can't actually use the product unless you create an account on their site, providing them with personal details with no opt-out.
You're right about companies liking to have contact details - every product seems to come with some kind of registration card - but until now I've never heard of a manufacturer actively withholding the instructions required to use the product unless you are willing to send it in.
Never attribute to malice anything that can be better explained by incompetence.
They probably thought having the instructions online would be easier than printing. Especially if there were any mistakes. Then they likely thought they should protect them so not everyone can view them, only purchasers. Then they likely thought they may as well take contact details in case they need to make people aware of faults/errors/updates etc.
Like the article says: what need is there to make updates to instructions to a mechanical puzzle?
Creating a registration system, taking steps to only provide instructions to those that register - all of that has a cost. I doubt this company would incur a cost unless they considered it an investment.
Ermm, because it's not. The puzzle is part of the game of finding the gold coins in the real world (see Wikipedia entry). Of course they're going to want to update that.
The "solution" to the puzzle is basically the way Lisa and Homer accidentally discover the secret of the Orb of Isis in this episode.
It's basically a crap puzzle based on an in-joke that only people who had seen this particular episode would be aware of. The conspiracy theory stuff seems unwarranted. For example:
> [U]nsurprisingly, it would not let me register twice, saying "That serial number is already registered under a different email address." If there's a benign explanation for that, I can't think what it could be.
Crippling the product for customers who bought it second hand is really annoying, but it's not proof of a criminal conspiracy to harvest registration data and sell it. It's standard business practice in many otherwise legitimate industries (e.g. computer games).
It takes quite a bit of energy to turn an ordinary object into a serious scam. Yet seems this kind of thing appears more and more. It seems that ordinary manufacturers have taken a clue from Nigerian scam artists.
Scam? How? They offered to delete his information if he asked. That bit about paying the shipping costs yourself if the product s not defective is perfectly normal. At worst, they've read too many Dan Brown novels and their product is a bit cheesy.
"Extortion", "blackmail", the use of these words is pure hysteria.
I'm reminded of a friend of mine, another Internet privacy nut, who posted on his blog that these car insurance websites are a scam, they don't save you money. Turned out he'd registered with a false name and address... If the website couldn't credit score him, of course it would give him a bad quote!
The difference is that in the case of a car insurance web site, I know before I pay them any money that I have to provide them with personal information. Also, it's clear that when the product is insurance, there is a legitimate need for the company to have your personal information.
In this case, I don't find out that I have to turn over my personal information until after I've paid for the product, and after I break the seal so I can no longer return it. And there is a penalty for not turning over my information: I don't get the instruction manual. It is certainly a mild form of extortion, but it is extortion nonetheless.
Extortion is a crime - it means obtaining money, property or services from another through threats of physical harm. Did that happen here? Umm, no. The author is just incoherent with made-up internet-privacy hysteria.
Secondly, you have statutory rights. That little EULA is meaningless and everyone knows it, hell there's a bloke on GMTV nearly every morning banging on about consumer rights. If the product's not fit for purpose then that's that.
No, physical harm is not a necessary element of extortion. All that is needed is a threat of harm. In this case, the threat of harm is to deny the customer access to the manual for the product they bought and can no longer return.
It is certainly not the most serious extortion ever perpetrated. But it is extortion nonetheless.
Of course they want your information, there is a very select target demographic that could be suckered in with such an expensive puzzle. It would be nice to have those addresses for new product releases and introductions. His cleverness just came off as annoying and somewhat done up, down rate this please.
However, the whole part of this post about extortion is kind of silly. How many of these have been sold? A thousand or so? Yeah, that must be a very valuable database of information they're keeping. Any company looking to target a rich demographic could advertise at a country club. Why cook up a hairbrained scheme surrounding a puzzle?
I doubt their business model is based on selling personal information. If I had to guess, I'd say it's based on huge profit margins from selling a silly aluminum sphere.