How much Coca-Cola do you drink? What is it worth to you in para-money?
I didn’t think I drank all that much until I started saving my “Coke Points”. You may know how this and similar programs work. You purchase something (airline tickets, drugstore items) — in this case diet Coke — and earn “points”. These points are redeemable for items and services.
In the book “Revolutionary Wealth” by Alvin and Heidi Toffler, arrangements such as these create a kind of secondary currency called “para-money”. Unlike regular money (which is fungible, meaning it can be spent on anything), para-money can only be spent on certain things.
About once a week I go to the deli downstairs and grab a Coke. I wouldn’t call this a heavy-use activity but my “Coke Points” are now plentiful enough for me to “buy” a few album’s worth of music. Yikes! What’s all that corn syrup and artificial-ness doing to my body?
This past week I’ve been traveling. I haven’t saved any “Coke Points” although I’ve had a few sodas.
Meanwhile, I had an interesting discussion with another artist. We were talking about bartering. We were talking about the assumption many people make that we would gladly accept X goods/services in exchange for our work. In fact, specifically we were talking about how people quickly assume we will make such trades yet would never think to ask (or assume it was even proper to ask!) other professionals to “trade”. I was saying that from my experiences bartering rarely works to both parties satisfaction. As a result, I’ve mostly stopped this practice.
But that got me thinking about “Coke Points”. Could a para-money system be developed for the arts that would be fair? I tried this once with Millionaire Artist Money (MAM). That didn’t really go anywhere, but it got me thinking again of alternative money systems.
Alternative money systems are great… except, of course, they don’t include the cold hard cash required for living. I can’t redeem my “Coke Points” for student loans! (Note to Coke: great idea!)
(Created the above graphic titled “Gates of Coke”…you decide what it means!)
October 20th, 2007 at 10:14 pm
[...] Best Student Loan Guide wrote an interesting post today onHere’s a quick excerptI can’t redeem my “Coke Pointsâ€? for student loans! (Note to Coke: great idea!) [...]
October 21st, 2007 at 3:22 am
Hmm, buying coke to pay of your student loan sounds like the perfect way to increase our nation’s obesity…
Go for it!