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1.  

   A Lebesgue Measure

   

   dorpus, Sep 13th, 2005 @ 3:08am

   
   

   Do we define coins in the machine as a Borel set, Coinstar's cut as a lebesgue measure, customers as a finite sigma field? Does everybody get nothing, in the same way the integral of all rational numbers between 0 and 1 is 0, or do people get something for nothing, as zero raised to the zero power is 1?

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2.  

   Re: A Lebesgue Measure

   

   pat, Sep 13th, 2005 @ 3:56am

   
   

   dude. thats some complicated theories your throwing arround there.
   
   i recon coinstar will be keeping the money you put in until its reedeemed at amazon. how many ppl will cash in their change and then forget to reedeem their voucher online?

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3.  

   That Dorpus comment in Googlejap

   

   Pete Austin, Sep 13th, 2005 @ 6:15am

   
   

   Ž„’B‚Í‹@ŠB‚Ì?d‰Ý‚ð‚悤‚ÉBorel ƒZƒbƒg, —LŒÀ‚ȃVƒOƒ} •ª–ì‚Æ‚µ‚Čڋqlebesgue ‚Ì‘ª’è‚Æ‚µ‚Ä?Ø‚ç‚ê‚éCoinstar's ’è‹`‚·‚é‚©. ƒ[ƒ?‚ªƒ[ƒ?—Í‚Ö‚Å‚ ‚é1 ?オ‚é‚悤‚É, ŠF‚͉½‚à“¾ ‚È‚¢, “¯‚¶‚悤‚É0 ‚Æ1 ŠÔ‚Ì‚·‚ׂĂ̗L—??”‚Ì‘S‘Ì0, ‚Ü‚½‚Í“¾‚é ‰½‚à‚Ì‚½‚߂̉½‚©‚𖯂ð?Z‚܂킹‚È‚³‚¢‚©.Google translate. Assuming Techdirt's form can cope, that should be much better. BTW the value of coins is a scalar, but a Lebesgue Measure applies to volumes.
   
   I expect Amazon will be paying Coinstar, in return for the additional business.

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4.  

   What Coinstar gets out of it.

   

   WyerByter, Sep 13th, 2005 @ 6:49am

   
   

   Obviously, Coinstar is going to charge Amazon.com that 8.9% or probably more. Meanwhile the increased sales at Amazon.com will offset the small loss (or at least, that is the hope).

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5.  

   Re: What Coinstar gets out of it.

   

   Daniel (profile), Sep 13th, 2005 @ 8:51am

   
   

   actually amazon have a fairly good affiliate scheme, if it works on the same principal then they are making their money out of amazon by selling you the coupons. probably not quite a much money, but it may encourage you to use it more which offsets the amount.

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6.  

   I give you $1, you give me $0.91. Good idea!

   

   Mitch, Sep 13th, 2005 @ 11:13am

   
   

   I've always been checked that people would give money to a machine, and happily less money back.
   
   I suspect that Amazon is treating this like advertising, in that 8% (or less?) that CoinStar wants becomes a new sale.
   
   -Mitch

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7.  

   No Subject Given

   

   Greg Andrew, Sep 13th, 2005 @ 11:41am

   
   

   Coinstar is effectively buying Amazon gift certificates at a discount and then selling them to customers at full price. They've done this with a few other companies in the past, but Amazon is the first Internet retailer. For Amazon, this is similar to dealing with an affiliate, but the most important thing for Amazon is that this is a way to attract customers who don't have credit cards and so can't really order from Amazon over the net.

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8.  

   Re: No Subject Given

   

   aReader(), Sep 13th, 2005 @ 12:39pm

   
   

   You are right. The nearby Albertsons (grocery store) has a Coinstar machine and if you buy an Albertsons gift card, they don't charge any commission.

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