Microsoft To Offer Cash Back To Search Engine Users | Hacker News Reader

Microsoft To Offer Cash Back To Search Engine Users

techcrunch.com

11 pointsnickb10 comments

Oh man... who wants to bet that Microsoft will be alive in 200 years? Seriously, how many companies have they gone head to head with in the past 30 years or so... Apple, Lotus, Oracle, Netscape, Nintendo/Sony, Tivo, Google...

Regardless of your opinions about Microsoft, you have to admit that this is one hell of a resilient company. Even if they fail in some markets they just keep going and going.

I don't know if this new advertising model will work or not, but I think in 20 years when the NBT comes out from some new startup, MS will be there to fight against it in the marketplace.

Paypal used to give $5 to new users. I estimate that this is what put them on top, not (as Max Levchin guesses) that they spent hundreds of millions of dollars on fraud.

This will be awkward to implement but not for the obvious reason of avoiding automated fraud.

In some jurisdictions, it is illegal to offer kickbacks for certain products and services, if not all. For example, in the UK, I believe that it is illegal to offer consumers cash to accept a line of credit. I believe it is for this reason that UK credit card affiliate programmes specifically prohibit affiliates from sharing revenue with consumers.

If you offer a cashback programme to end users, you'll have to forego some lucrative advertising and/or explain to end users that some offers in some jurisdictions don't provide any cashback and/or explain fraudulent clawbacks to a large number of end users. In addition, the exceptions will be awkward to implement, maintain and administrate.

Wow, that's a good idea. Go Ballmer.

Their product is so bad they have to bribe users to use it ;)

It is a solid way for a second tier player to gain ground in any web market and here Balmer is trying to do it for the biggest market. At the very least, this is a good way of forcing the market to take less money from consumers.

There are a million cashback sites out there though. You can get cashback, or commission on anything you buy online already. Just seems a bit desparate to me.

Yes, there are a million cashback sites because it is profitable. Now MS has the biggest one and they can upset a market also. It won't save their company, but can anyone actually state why this is a bad business decision for Microsoft?

Well for me, it cheapens the product. It's like they feel they need to give people stuff to get them to use their product.

IMHO they should concentrate on making a better product that people want to use without being paid to use it.

Certainly it cheapens the product. They already lost their chance to win the Search Marketplace... Arrington talked about Yahoo doing a "scorched earth" tactic on the market. MS is doing the same thing by attempting to take away users while simultaneously cheapening the market.

At this point, is there anything Microsoft could do to beat Google at search? The only thing left is for someone to offer a completely free API.

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