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Comment by smt88 | Hacker News Reader

1. I'd use it. Does it exist already though? The concept sounds familiar.

2. This is a little harder for me to endorse. Here are some ways I can see it being implemented:

a) Factions aren't tied to a charity. They're competing for the money, and then they get to vote on the charity at the end of the competition period. As a competitor, I'm not trying to take money away from ACLU (or any other charity). I'm trying to take it away from the Red Sox.

b) Factions are tied to a charity, and both charities are positive (e.g. one supporting cancer research, one supporting HIV research). This is OK I guess, but if the money is going to a great cause either way, I might feel guilty for trying to hoard it for my faction.

c) Factions are tied to a charity, and I hate one of the charities (e.g. my faction supports cancer research, the other faction supports the NRA). This is bad. Don't do this.

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Thanks for the extra input. The concept sort of exists, but is not easy to understand or is accessible for most people imho. The closest app was Pact in 2012-14, which had huge success, but now appears to be abandoned.

This is really great input. I agree that the charities would have to be delicately balanced in order to be motivating and tasteful at the same time. There are a lot of ways it could go wrong.

What would you think about, instead of the charities having the money go into a bank that you could earn back over time. Say after a month you've paid $50 in penalties, each time you're active you earn a portion of that back. Also, let's say there's attrition on the funds over time, you only have so much time to earn the money back before it's gone for good? This is a 4th option that's been coming up after talking to others.

p.s. another thought could be that your friends can steal your bucks if they're hitting more of their goals than you?

Super exciting to see your thinking and progress on this! Let me know when you're ready to be added to http://blog.beeminder.com/competitors

And here are our thoughts on charities: http://blog.beeminder.com/anticharity

Oh yeah, and we have some very old thoughts on Pact (originally GymPact) and the idea of the winners paying the losers here: https://blog.beeminder.com/gympact/

Tons of room for competitors doing commitment devices and other motivation hacking. I chuckled/winced at "Beeminder but for less highly technical people" -- we'll get there! :)

Mr. Reeves! Holy sh*t, I'm honored! I hope I didn't come down too hard on Beeminder, I certainly didn't mean to. I honestly think you guys are one of the only companies with the balls to do penance right. Imho I really don't think the majority of people understand just how powerful it can be.

On another note, so much of my research that has gone into this has come from your site. You guys are an amazing example of brave transparency. What you guys have shared publicly has been incredibly helpful to me while trying to posture with a way to innovation in this space. So thank you so much for that!

I appreciate you chiming in here as well and the resources you shared. I'd love to run other ideas in this space past you as I'm sure you have more experience than just about anyone.

Lastly I'd also love to pick your brain on Pact, I'm curious if you have any insight into what happened? It seems like it's been abandoned, but it still has a ton of users that want to use it.

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