Almost two years ago I signed up as a member of PipelineCard.org - an interesting experiment in online collaboration.

The goal was simple: to see if a large and loosely organised body of people, garnered mostly through online word of mouth (or should that be word of mouse?) could use their collective buying power to gain a discount from a major fuel retailer.

To date, half a million people have signed up. And the message from the scheme’s founders is, erm, not positive. A loosely organised body of 500,000 people can’t manage to secure a discount from a major fuel retailer, it seems.

“I won't bore you with the long list of broken promises, false hopes, and corporate inactivity,” wrote founder Ben Scammell. “The short version is that our original ‘partner’ let us down, we have spoken to several others and the industry has clearly closed ranks against us. What a surprise!”

It is indeed not much of a surprise. After all, what Scammell was proposing was a loyalty card scheme where the retailer suffered most of the losses associated with such things - having to give a discount - while failing to garner the big gain: ownership over members’ details and therefore opportunities to data mine or to upsell associated products such as motor insurance or loans. This leaves the main benefit being simple customer loyalty - a card member is more likely to buy repeatedly at forecourts that give a discount to members. But again, the retailer will see a dubious benefit as they will not own the scheme and could see that loyalty shift to a rival at a future date.

“We have learnt a lot along the way and one of the things we have learnt - the hard way - is that 500,000 members aren’t enough,” Scammell wrote. “We are now about to launch a new publicity campaign and we aim to double that figure within six weeks. We are very confident that one of the petrol retailers will break ranks - but only if we can get a lot more members.”

Will a million members be enough for the single benefit of loyalty to start outweighing the drawbacks from a retailer perspective? Maybe.

More likely is that Scammell and Co’s efforts have simply poked the sleeping giants - and the fuel retailers will put more effort into marketing their own loyalty schemes. For example, in May this year Shell replaced its existing PlusPoints scheme with a new Drivers’ Club offering discounts, Airmiles, and donations to charity or to CO2 reduction schemes.

I certainly admire the founders of Pipeline Card, but I fear their mission is a bit too Quixotic to succeed.