
January 14, 2019
This past holiday season, you may have received a gift card as a present. Or you may have given a gift card as a present.
I have a question for you. Why?
It is almost uniformly accepted that giving cash money as a gift is, at best, gauche. Why, then, is a gift card any more socially acceptable? It’s frankly WORSE than giving cash, since it is the same as giving cash EXCEPT that the recipient is now forced to spend that money with a single merchant (who, by the way, is going to make more money off the gift cards than their face value, since many gift cards go unused and, even when they are redeemed, the person with the card has to cough up more money than the value of the card to purchase their desired item).
And don’t get me started with the people who give you books you have no intention of reading….