A few weeks ago, I was driving up 75 and passed the skeletal remains of Touchdown Jesus. If you don't know what this is, God help you (AHA!). It was a giant statue of Jesus by the highway, attached to the outdoor ampitheatre of a massive church. What's relevant is that it cost $300k to build, and another $300k to rebuild. Granted, it was insured, but that's still a shitload of money that could have gone to silly things like feeding poor people, helping disease research foundations, and the like. I was reminded of this, because I was listening to a track of the new Linkin Park album, and I noted a common factor. Chester Bennington has an awesome and unique voice. He could have been the vocal talent behind a great group, but instead he chose to sing lyrics that became the rallying banner for an entire generation of pseudo-suicidal emo teens. FOCUS: What money, talent, or other potentially great idea have you seen completely wasted by misdirected application? Anti-Focus: Conversely, what terribly conceived notion or so forth can you think of, if any, that managed to defy all odds and become something incredible?
Let's avoid the obvious targets like Bieber and Rebecca Black. The no {religion, politics} rules apply as usual.
Focus Groupon - few if any advertisers would reuse the service? The only people it's ever benefited were price conscious tightfists who you don't actually want as a customer anyway? It's basically a giant Ponzi scheme? About to IPO with a valuation of something like $20 BILLION dollars and expected to raise about a Billion in cash from the IPO? Ugh. Anti-Focus So this service lets you put a text message about the trivial inconsequentialities of your bowel movements up the internet, knowing full well that it's almost entirely certain that no-one will read it, and even less likely that anyone will care? But it will inflate the sense of self worth of morons? And you're going to name it after the meaningless noise for the sake of noise made by small birds? Sure, I'll buy in at 150 shares to the dollar. I bet everyone who laughed at the initial Twitter investors feels pretty fucking stupid now. A business model that leverages the need for morons to inflate their sense of self importance and taps into social marketing beats the crap out of Groupon for longevity.
Agreed, and I think they would have been smart to take Google's $6 billion dollar offer to buy it out and walk away. Restaurants are quickly learning this stuff is bad for them long term. Facebook: Using the biggest network and most powerful social networking technology around you can connect with all your friends and... Lol at repetitive status updates, share useless pictures no one cares about, 'like' basic human functions like eating and play stupid games. Anti-Focus: Payday loans: For the low low price of $2,000 a year you can get your $400 paycheck 5 days early! Hallmark cards: $4-$5 dollar piece of shit cards with words that sound like something you'd say written by someone else that you physically mail to people, in the age of the internet. Seriously, why are they still in business?
Uhhh, not quite. This may be the practical outcome for dumbasses who don't know how to use the product, but used properly they're very beneficial. If you use them in a situation where you can't put off a bill without suffering detriment, and the cost of the loan is less than the penalty or bank fees for overdrawing, then they're a good option. Granted, the situation between the products in our countries isn't the same; but they're not dissimilar. Where a borrower keeps rolling over to the point where it starts to become the $2,000 a year you're talking about, then it's either the fault of the borrower for being stupid or the lender for being a shonk - it's not the loan. Ascribing the figures you are in terms of "a year" is akin to quoting the cost of taxi fare in terms of a cross country trip: neither of them are designed that way. Don't be a sheep and drink the Koolaid.
Obviously, this is not a viable alternative for everyone, but I always borrow money from my friends when I have a short-term deadline to meet. I recently borrowed $900 from one friend and $800 from another to pay for a new motorcycle, and told them I would pay them back when I sold my current motorcycle. They could see I had the liquid assets in place, so they had no problem lending to me, and a week later I had sold my bike and paid them both back. If you can prove how and when you'll pay your friends back, and you're not a total shit-head, and they're not total shit-heads, then it shouldn't be too hard to borrow some cash from friends. Similarly, I lent about $7000 to a friend this year—in fact I offered to do it when I found out he was going to take out a bank loan. It took him about 6 months to pay me back, but he made good on it. There are plenty of legitimate reasons why this would not feasible for everyone, but if it's not an option for you then I think it's worth pondering why that's the case.