Ask HN: What Happened to Facebook Gifts?

https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=36565635

by krm01 • 3 years ago

6 1 3 years ago

news.ycombinator.com

https://about.fb.com/news/2012/09/introducing-facebook-gifts/amp/

When this launched it seemed like the perfect business model. Even the hard to please HN community was applauding the effort.

Does anyone know why they didn’t double down on their gifting experiment?

ksaj• 3 years ago

Reddit used to have one, but have been sending people to givin.gifts. However, it really seems to be less tightly run. When you scroll through the list of how many people have been stood up, waiting for regifters that never come, it's pretty sad.

Having said that, the current exchange I'm in, only 77 out of 97 people have sent their gifts yet, even though the deadline was 4 days ago. A previous exchange I was in had significant problems, but did come through and was quite good about it. But the current one is missing in action, and hasn't bothered to contact me. So I can see that this sort of thing is all too common on the site. If it goes the way I think it's going to go, I'm deleting my account and moving on.

I can't endorse it because it is clear far too many people sign up just to get free stuff, and don't reciprocate. But you may want to check it out anyway, and form your own opinion of the site. It's two thumbs down from me, if that counts.

I pretty much think this is why Reddit gave up on the gift exchange, and probably why Facebook no longer does it as well.

Ask HN: What Happened to Facebook Gifts?

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