Okay, this isn’t a “great” debate by any stretch of the imagination, but it seems to be a question of morality in general, so I’ll toss it in GD to start. Moderators, please pinball the thread to whatever other thread you deem appropriate.
For those who haven’t heard, Pepsi Cola and Apple Computers are running a promotional contest – by buying bottles of Pepsico beveerages, you have a 1-in-3 chance of winning a free song on Apple’s iTunes Music Store. The winning bottles have a code written on the inside of the bottle cap; if you have a winner, you can enter the code at the iTMS and get a credit for a song of your choice.
For those who don’t want to leave it to chance, however, it’s possible to tilt the bottles, sneak a peek at the cap, and determine if you’ve got a winner or not. Some folks have gleefully (heh) gone bottle-browsing at their local grocers, buying up all the winners and getting lots of free songs (as well as entries to win an iPod).
What’s the morality of doing this? On the one hand, it strikes me as cheating, since you’re violating the spirit of the contest. On the other hand, it strikes me as just “gaming the rules” (a classic case of munchkin gaming) – just because the folks who put this together didn’t close the loophole doesn’t mean you can’t go through it, especially since they had the same loophole last year.
It seems to me that it’s Pepsi’s responsibility to make sure that this couldn’t be done. Especially since it was happening the last time the same contest was run a year ago, and they could have taken steps to prevent it this time. They didn’t change the bottles, whether because they don’t care or because of the cost.
I don’t think it’s quite the right thing to do, but if someone is that desperate for free iTunes, nobody can stop them.
Not unethical at all. Stupid on the part of Pepsi, since other similar contests used opaque cap liners so that you couldn’t see what was under it. Neither Apple nor Pepsi loses anything, since you are not causing them any extra expense. In fact, they might well have a marketing effectiveness metric on what percentage of codes get used, and by doing this you are improving it, since the bottle might have been bought by a little old lady from Pasadena without a computer otherwise.
You might be injuring a person who wants the codes, but they are free to either look for bottles with the code (since I doubt you will be buying 1/3 of the bottles of Pepsi in the market) or else buy cans where there won’t be an issue.
Or don’t they do it with cans? Pepsi makes me puke, so I’m not a participant in this game.
Heh. I spent minutes at the cooler picking out the right bottles.
Here’s why it isn’t a bad thing:
I wouldn’t be drinking Pepsi if it weren’t for this promotion. Ergo, Pepsi wins.
A minority of Pepsi drinkers use iTunes, and I don’t take all the winning caps. Ergo, other consumers aren’t put out.
I’ve already bought 2 iPods, a 17" Powerbook, Airport Extreme, Airport Express, Mac OS X Panther, and iLife 04 from Apple. For the thousands of dollars I’ve given Apple, I don’t think they’ll mind a 99 cents here or there. Ergo, Apple is still thousands of dollars up on this little soda-drinker.
Now if you’ll excuse me, I need to go buy some carbonated sugar-water.
Doesn’t a Pepsi bottle cost about a dollar? What, in essence, are you really saving here people.
Not a big morality problem, seeing as pepsi still makes money, and apple doesn’t really have to spend any extra time or money to upload a song to your computer.
Now that you’ve upped your chances from 3:1 to 1:1 of winning 1 dollar worth of song for every dollar you spend. You break even, except you’re still out a dollar.
What’s even funnier is when Gatorade ran this type of under-the-cap thing a couple years ago with their freaking clear lemon and lime flavored drink. They will sell the stuff probably regardless, so you aren’t hurting them. It’s not wrong, therefore, enjoy the free stuff.
You’re all thieves and scoundrels! Hang the lot of them, I say.
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Just because you can cheat, doesn’t mean that it is ethical to do so. Not only are you stealing from Pepsi, you are stealing from other non-cheating customers.
You’re not stealing from anyone since you are paying for the product. And the contest rules almost certainly don’t state it is illegal to tilt the bottle prior to purchase. Something like that would have to be something the grocer in question would have rules against.
You are paying for a soda and a chance of getting a free song. I am paying for a soda and a chance of getting a free song. Call it SODA+SONG/3. When you cherry-pick the winning bottles, you get SODA+SONG and I get SODA. You get more than you paid for and I get less.
