I think the idea of introducing Illinibucks to the student population is a very interesting concept and would make for a great way to study and evaluate how students value and prioritize things here on campus. It would provide campus officials and administrators with a great insight into what kind of places students care the most about, and not only the kind of places, but of those places, which ones are the most highly valued and thought of by students. It would also be beneficial to the establishments themselves as they would have a direct way of comparing themselves to their competitors from a student's perspective. The Illinibucks would also obviously provide a great benefit to students themselves as they would be able to apply them at places of their choosing enhancing the utility received from the Illinibucks.
The type of places that I would expect to be candidates for use of Illinibucks are bars, restaurants, bookstores, grocery stores, and other retailers. These are all types of places that accrue lines and students would be able to allocate their Illinibucks however they pleased at any of the establishments. Some of the places could require more Illinibucks to cut line based on popularity and traffic. The frequency with which Illinibucks were turned in at each place could be used to determine the amount of Illinibucks at each location. As for the administered price, the university could stagger pricing on the initial Illinibucks sold so that they could determine at what point people would stop paying for them. If they are administered at a price too low, too many Illinibucks will be issued making them virtually worthless when trying to be used. If they are administered at a price too high, not enough Illinibucks will be sold, and the university will lose out on valuable revenue.
For my personal usage, I would use my Illinibucks to get out of waiting on line at bars. Lines can be as long as 30 to 45 minutes at some bars on busy nights, and being able to use the Illinibucks to skip those lines would be of great personal value to me. Many of the lines are manufactured on the outside by the bar to make it seem as if it is very crowded on the inside, even if it is not the case, and I would greatly like to be able to avoid those lines.
For the bars or restaurants or other commercial establishments, presumably the have the option to adjust the real bucks price of their items. Why isn't that superior to using illinibucks?
ReplyDeleteI haven't been to the bars for quite a while, so I'll have to take your word on the manufactured lines. Do you think they really get more business overall that way?