bryant

I admit it: the lure of a free Mac mini led me to take a peek at Freeminimacs.com. The deal is that you sign up for one of several offers via their site, and you get ten of your friends to do the same thing, and you get a free Mac mini out of it. Presumably your friends go out and do the same, and so on.

The economics of this seem to make sense -- it's your basic pyramid scheme, but less objectionable because the upfront cost of getting involved is minimized. The percentage of people who complete the offer is fairly low, while the people behind it are making money on everyone who starts the process. So, sure, for a free Mac mini I was willing to give 'em my email address. My spam filter is mighty.

Alas, the offers don't really match up with anything I'd wanna sign up for. Credit cards, Blockbuster Online, random cheesy stuff. Which isn't surprising, I suppose.