It's unclear whether, on gofuckingdoit.com, the penalty fine gets paid to the friend acting as a referee, or the owners of the site.
Heck, if the site really wants to maximize it's value to users for the stated goal, it should probably donate the majority (or a token amount) to the Church of Scientology.
If it went to the friend, it'd create a perverse incentive for your friend to not actively encourage/support you. Sure, most friends won't consciously respond to this incentive, but I think subconsciously they'll care less.
If it went to a charity, I wouldn't really feel bad about losing it. It'd significantly decrease the threshold of pain and thus decrease the incentive.
Since it goes to the "greedy" owner, I feel all the more pressure to get it done.
I'm kinda dying to know if people actually sign up to send some random website money. As it is, I'm almost wondering if its satire.
I'll keep reading what everyone here thinks and implement that once there's some consensus.
1. Benevolent option: the money goes to the website but it goes back to the user after a year, less a fee (the website will also earn interest for that year so you'd get fee + interest income). Not only do you help people stop procrastinating but you also help them with a saving program.
2. Devious option (and probably more commercially viable). the website takes the money but the website also runs a weekly lottery that pays out some fraction of the revenue collected.