On July 14, mobile app consultant Jonathan Stark started an experiment in radical sharing, a modern-day twist on “take a penny, leave a penny.” He put $30 on a Starbucks card and uploaded the barcode to his website with the idea that anyone would then be able to download the image to their mobile phone and cash in for coffee. The first $30 went pretty quickly among a small group of friends, so he tacked on another $50 and invited a few more folks to play along. All of a sudden, people stopped merely taking and started also giving. It was working.
Though Stark admits he assumed the give-to-take ratio would land around 1-to-10, what he witnessed was closer to 1-to-1. He also admitted that, on the surface, it may be “kind of silly to give people who can afford an iPhone a free $5 coffee," but it's an easy starting point for a journey that could lead further down the peer-to-peer sharing road. "I would like to see something like this around a CVS pharmacy to share money… [something that let's people] donate in an ad hoc way instead of going through large organizations. … There's something about it being more direct that feels better."
One participant in the trial wrote about her experience on Huffington Post: “As I walked out of the store, free coffee in hand, a little bit of my faith in humanity was restored. Although I'm just talking about 12 oz. of coffee, I'm fascinated by the bigger idea; I wanted to put money back on the card so that other people could experience the same adrenaline rush (minus the coffee). I continue to smile in amazement that such a small act of kindness can brighten up someone's day and inspire him or her to brighten up someone else's.”
It seemed pay-it-forward was alive and well. Some people were so intrigued by the project, that they jumped in even deeper, like the two app developers that created programs to enhance the functionality of Jonathan's Card.
Of course, there are always those who try to game the system, as well. One guy hacked in and transferred $625 to his own Starbucks card and bragged about it in a blog post titled “How to use Jonathan’s Card to buy yourself an iPad.” The hacker, seriel tech entrepreneur Sam Odio, imagined himself as a sort of Robin Hood, saying he planned to auction the card and donate the money to Save the Children. Feeling more misunderstood than anything, Stark said of the infraction, “It’s obviously not in the spirt of the experiment. It’s not what the money was put there for. The point of this is to be wide open and trusting, and to expect the best of people. If he thinks this is good, and that people will see it that way, it’s up to him to decide. I believe that people get what they deserve, good or bad.”
Due to the exploit – and claims by naysayers that the whole thing was a publicity stunt for the coffee behemoth – Starbucks shut down the card on August 12. After a month of communal caffeine, Stark posted this statement where once the barcode stood on his website: “We believe this is the start to a bigger more glowing picture. In the last five days or so, we've received hundreds of stories of people doing small things to brighten a stranger's day: Paying for the next car at the drive through. Sharing a pick-me-up with someone who has had a rough time. Charging up a phone card and sharing it with strangers at the airport. The list goes on, and on, and on… So, tonight we lose our barcode. But of course, we never needed it in the first place.”