8-year-old kid wants in-app purchases for Hanukkah

I missed this in the NY Times last week. Parent agonizes over whether she should buy her son what he wants for Hanukkah, which are in-app purchases allowing him to get ahead faster in his favorite iPod games.

She called up a “professor of health promotion and behavioral science” to ask if in-app purchases are good for a child or if they are like cheating (do normal parents to that to help with these sorts of parenting issues?) and the professor responded Socratically:

If you are struggling with math and your parent gets a math tutor and he or she teaches you shortcuts, is that the same as an in-app purchase?

Good question.

Comments

[Comrade]

In-app purchases are more like a line of toys that requires a large portion of the line to be purchased before you can have any fun.

[XVO]

"If you are struggling with math and your parent gets a math tutor and he or she teaches you shortcuts, is that the same as an in-app purchase?"

No. It's more like if you're struggling with math and your parents pay a tutor to take your math class for you.

But it's really a different situation because the gatekeepers of the app want you to pay them so you can "cheat". So it's not really immoral if that's what the mother is really worried about. In a way your payment is subsidizing the free players so it may even be considered charity!

[anonymous]

Normal parents = goyim?

As I have anonymously said before, there's Good Money (ie money taken from one's enemies) to be made from an in-app purchase heavy game that promotes pro-regime memes.

Buy the ANC necklace of tolerance, just $44.

[HS: Normal parents are parents who don't write for the NY Times.]

[anonymous]

Kid should have just asked for an iTunes card.

[dexelpred]

In-app purchases are bad because they teach kids a set of bad values, including:

(1) your product doesn't have to work when you buy it; and
(2) it's fine to change the rules of a game of skill with $