But using your framework of, "if everyone did this, how would this affect the business and others using the business," then I (and many others) are doing a lot of other unethical things. Ad blocking and card counting (in blackjack) clearly would be deemed unethical under this criteria, but here's a bunch of other more tangible examples.
There's a popular pastry place that has 50% off sales on Sunday afternoon because they are closing Monday so they sell the remaining stock at a significant discount before close. I only go there on Sunday afternoons, but if everyone did that, then the prices would go up for all.
Another thing I do is using the books, video games, movies, and streaming services offered by my library and never buy any real media. But if everyone did this, then bookstores, theaters, and streaming companies would go bankrupt.
The cashback was created as an incentive, you found a way to exploit the business model for personal gain in ways that can have an impact on others ability to enjoy the system while having a material impact on the provider of the service. Most in your position will say "but I am only a small piece of the cog" however, if a small minority starts to think the same way, it can have a real impact on a variety of things, including trust between parties.
Everyone tries to rationalize their actions, whether it is or becomes socially acceptable is another matter.
That is different from finding a way through the rules which is clearly unintended.
The service was intended to pay you significant sums to move money back and forth?
- If you have a credit card with decent cash back/rewards program. The interest rate is going to be higher. If you are carrying a balance month to month. You’re doing it wrong.
- If life happens and you do end up with a balance and your credit is decent, you should be able to get a no interest for x months, no interest balance transfer.
Credit Cards aren’t a life necessity. Homeowners insurance and car insurance are. Taking advantage of the rules as they exist is not unethical. Insurance fraud is both unethical and illegal.
Actually no, they pay for it directly out of transaction fees levied on sellers (which are usually around 3-5%). Some of that they take for themselves, and some they use for consumer rewards. It's a great way to make a lot of money and keep consumers incentivized to use them.
Economically, it's sort of like crappy product/service things licensed to prisons (like video telephones) that charge hefty fees to the inmates and their families, and give a significant portion of those fees back to the prisons. They're taking advantage of the incentives they can provide to the decision makers (prison administrators, or consumers in the case of credit cards) to overcharge the other party (inmates, or vendors), and make a lot of money in the process.
A similar thing happens when someone offers "unlimited storage" for home broadband users backups and people start hosting many many terabytes of porn / isos / whatever. Sure, they're entirely within the allowed behaviour, but it's clearly intended to make it easy for people to backup their photos and documents without having to know if a gigabyte is enough or not.
I would say I feel like using something in a way not intended (even if allowed) that is detrimental to the person/people offering it is unethical when considered in isolation.
I'm actually a little surprised this needs saying, is this not a common view?
edit - I guess not if it was downvoted so quickly (I know, I know, I'm not complaining about the internet points, it's honestly very interesting to me). Are people that on board wit h heavily abusing systems just because it's technically within the rules?
Remind me to never offer free pizza at a HN event as someone may turn up, say "you didn't specify a per person limit" and walk off with the food intended for everyone.
My local gym and Moviepass (remember them?) expects people to sign up and rarely use the gym or watch movies. Otherwise, they would go out of business if everyone actually constantly used them. Is my using the gym or watching movies every day unethical? It sounds like you're calling lot of people unethical. Aren't people heavily abusing Moviepass by actually watching movies nearly every day?
In a more hypothetical scenario, let's say Facebook does not want people to use its platform to organize political/activism activities, because it makes the company look bad. It does not prohibit it, but let's say the CEO says on a talkshow that he wants people to use Facebook only for positive things. Would that make organizing on Facebook unethical?
It just seems like your view doesn't match how most of society views their social contract with for-profit companies.
No, that's missing the key part that it has to be detrimental to the person offering it.
> Is my using the gym or watching movies every day unethical?
I don't think so, if you're using the service because you want to go to the gym every day or see all the films. The website for moviepass says "see it all" so it seems reasonable to go and see every film. Finding a 24 hour cinema and living in it because now you don't have to pay rent - seems unethical to me.
Imagine if moviepass said "see a film every week" but technically didn't say you couldn't see many every day. The underlying rules are technically the same - if you knew they had to pay most of the cost of a ticket, would you feel like the ethics of going every day would be different?
I said it was a simple rule, as there will be edge cases for everything and wider contexts (blocking a road as an act in isolation seems bad, but what if it's a protest, etc). There are though obvious answers to me, and getting eighteen grand a year for rapidly moving money back and forth is one that has an easy answer.
> In a more hypothetical scenario, let's say Facebook does not want people to use its platform to organize political/activism activities, because it makes the company look bad. It does not prohibit it, but let's say the CEO says on a talkshow that he wants people to use Facebook only for positive things. Would that make organizing on Facebook unethical?
Comes down to level of harm, just like anything else. Remove the brand Facebook from that as it's a vast empire. What if it were a small local service for residents to catch up, and political fighting would mean they'd have to shut down?
> It just seems like your view doesn't match how most of society views their social contract with for-profit companies
Is it ethical to go to an all you can eat restaurant and if there's no explicit sign stopping you then packing up all the food in huge bags and walking out?
If there's a sample table that says "free cakes" would you take all of them?
On a more meta level, I am concerned about an ethical view where different ethical rules apply if different actors are involved. It leads to one person basically not liking something (drugs, activism, etc.) and calling it unethical because of some broad claims about harm to society.
The financial company didn't run a website saying "want to be paid thousands? Move money back and forth repeatedly with our services!".
> On a more meta level, I am concerned about an ethical view where different ethical rules apply if different actors are involved.
Different actors are different so I don't see why that's a concern. Different intent is also surely not an odd addition here? It's foundational in so many legal systems even.
Also "expected behavior" seems like it could be pretty subjective. Different cultures have wildly different values.
> Also "expected behavior" seems like it could be pretty subjective. Different cultures have wildly different values.
Sure, and it's down to your expectations. Two people can perform the same act with different intentions, and only one may be unethical.