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Show HN: WorkOrPay – Set goals, form contracts, pay a penalty if you fail

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Re: Show HN: WorkOrPay – Set goals, form contracts, pay a penalty if you fail

#41

Post by adamzerner »

khromem wrote: post #27
constantinum wrote: post #8

How is this different from Beeminder — afaik popularised "commitment contract". I'm an active user of Beeminder; have 4 active commitments. More than feature to feature comparison, Beeminder has an amazing blog, and an ever supportive community to lean on to. [links] https://www.beeminder.com/home https://blog.beeminder.com/ https://forum.beeminder.com/

Beeminder is great. However, it's all automated and you cannot set huge penalties for single goals. Also, It's limited to things that can be verified from fitness trackers and other apps thats many people do not use. WorkOrPay tries to add more human interactions. We text users daily to make sure they aren't starting slack off. We help them form reasonable goals. Do verifications manually, so the goals can really be…

> However, it's all automated... Also, It's limited to things that can be verified from fitness trackers and other apps thats many people do not use.

That isn't true. You can track progress on a goal manually, as well as automatically. For example, I used to use Beeminder to track how many push ups I did.

Re: Show HN: WorkOrPay – Set goals, form contracts, pay a penalty if you fail

#42

Post by reggieband »

I recall a Twilight Zone movie "Cat's Eye" and a sketch from that including James Woods called "Dying For a Smoke". The premise is a man wants to quit smoking so he goes to a firm called Quitters Inc. where he signs a contract. If they catch him smoking they will escalate the punishments against him. After a few relatively tame punishments for sneaking a cigarette, he gets caught smoking again and so they kidnap his wife and daughter. They force him to watch as the company tortures his family and then they insinuate even worse fates for his family if they catch him smoking again.

The sketch from the mentioned movie is a dark satire. It lampoons the kind of pseudo-logical thinking which simplifies problems by externalizing responsibility for our actions to external entities. Yet it is only when that external entity reflects the consequences of our action back on us that there is a chance we alter our behavior. However, once externalized we lose control of the process and in some sense become a slave to it.

I feel that dystopian sketch is a satire directly aimed at this kind of application.

Re: Show HN: WorkOrPay – Set goals, form contracts, pay a penalty if you fail

#43

Post by newsclues »

johnthewise wrote: post #15

I strongly believe external motivation kills the inner motivation. Maybe that is the goal here, by killing it completely so you can't ever think of depending on it(?). For me personally, I always found these kind of tools that helps trick one's self into doing or not doing things, very soul crushing. It's almost like trying to beat yourself into submission, disowning the part of yourself. If you can't make yourself t…

Not everyone has the same level of motivation.

Maybe highly internally motivated people won’t understand this, but others will benefit?

Re: Show HN: WorkOrPay – Set goals, form contracts, pay a penalty if you fail

#45

Post by [deleted] »

johnthewise wrote: post #15

I strongly believe external motivation kills the inner motivation. Maybe that is the goal here, by killing it completely so you can't ever think of depending on it(?). For me personally, I always found these kind of tools that helps trick one's self into doing or not doing things, very soul crushing. It's almost like trying to beat yourself into submission, disowning the part of yourself. If you can't make yourself t…

[deleted]

Re: Show HN: WorkOrPay – Set goals, form contracts, pay a penalty if you fail

#46

Post by [deleted] »

[deleted] wrote: post #45
johnthewise wrote: post #15

I strongly believe external motivation kills the inner motivation. Maybe that is the goal here, by killing it completely so you can't ever think of depending on it(?). For me personally, I always found these kind of tools that helps trick one's self into doing or not doing things, very soul crushing. It's almost like trying to beat yourself into submission, disowning the part of yourself. If you can't make yourself t…

[deleted]

[deleted]

Re: Show HN: WorkOrPay – Set goals, form contracts, pay a penalty if you fail

#48

Post by [deleted] »

reggieband wrote: post #42

I recall a Twilight Zone movie "Cat's Eye" and a sketch from that including James Woods called "Dying For a Smoke". The premise is a man wants to quit smoking so he goes to a firm called Quitters Inc. where he signs a contract. If they catch him smoking they will escalate the punishments against him. After a few relatively tame punishments for sneaking a cigarette, he gets caught smoking again and so they kidnap his…

[deleted]

Re: Show HN: WorkOrPay – Set goals, form contracts, pay a penalty if you fail

#49

Post by ravishi »

johnthewise wrote: post #15

I strongly believe external motivation kills the inner motivation. Maybe that is the goal here, by killing it completely so you can't ever think of depending on it(?). For me personally, I always found these kind of tools that helps trick one's self into doing or not doing things, very soul crushing. It's almost like trying to beat yourself into submission, disowning the part of yourself. If you can't make yourself t…

You may have inner motivation. Some don't.

I've been down this rabbit role trying to find my inner motivation for half a decade already. I've tried everything, from recreational to prescription drugs, routine, exercise, nutrition changes, therapy, even became a parent. Nothing works consistently.

So when I find myself unable to be motivated, I just stack techniques as much as I can. I have a whole toolbox of maneuvers and mechanisms to achieve whatever I have to without any inner motivation.

It's the best way of coping with life I've found up until this point.

Re: Show HN: WorkOrPay – Set goals, form contracts, pay a penalty if you fail

#50

Post by trhr »

khromem wrote: post #7
nathanaldensr wrote: post #3

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Where are you incorporated? Are you a non-profit? How do you make money?

We are a New York LLC. We're not incorporated at the moment. We make money through a subscription model. We do not make anything from the contracts because it seemed wrong to profit from our users failing. We want our incentives to be aligned correctly!

Since you're allowing people to donate to charities or "anti-charities," you should just allow the user to specify a % fee that goes to you. If I set up a $1,000 contract to go to some Nazi org if I fail, I'd much rather $1 go to the Nazi org and $999 to you.
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