In order to reduce the amount of money needed to support the BI scheme, you are given a card to buy some standardized products: jeans, bread, soup, chairs, tables, beds, bikes, ubuntu and the like. The main point is that those products are cheaper to produce and distribute. You lose some of the power of money but since society is paying the bill I think you should accept the deal.
You reinvented food stamps. There will be costs running that card scheme and costs for retailers accepting it, and maybe the BI recepient wants to buy used clothing p2p or not have to go to bigbox retail corp to buy jeans. Maybe they buy fabric and make their own unique clothes now that they have time. My city is full of hipster hobbyist dressmakers and drop in sewing lounges, maybe they will become successful designers if not forced to do meaningless work to survive.
It'll be gamed by corps wanting to get their products on the approved list while cheaper products might end up not being approved. I've seen government justify buying items costing 4 times the price with less than half the features due to cost saving measures, because the expensive crap was approved but the cheaper consumer item was not.
I buy tables, bikes, and beds solely second hand (oftentimes from an individual not a store). If I had to buy new it would destroy the second hand market and encourage massive amounts of waste.
In order to reduce the amount of money needed to support the BI scheme, you are given a card to buy some standardized products: jeans, bread, soup, chairs, tables, beds, bikes, ubuntu and the like. The main point is that those products are cheaper to produce and distribute. You lose some of the power of money but since society is paying the bill I think you should accept the deal.
Edited: grammar and shorter.