Hacker News Board Hacker News, browsed like a classic message board
Live data from Hacker News

Launch HN: Yotta Savings (YC S20) – Behavioral psychology to help people save

news.ycombinator.com

Post reply on HN
Print view View original

81–90 of 309 posts

Re: Launch HN: Yotta Savings (YC S20) – Behavioral psychology to help people save

#81

Post by AnimalMuppet »

tasogare wrote: post #76
adammoelis wrote: post #24

Earlier quoted context omitted.

A fair point for sure. The rationale is the $10 million headline is the annuity value of the jackpot, and it's standard practice for sweepstakes or the PowerBall/MegaMillions contests to use the annuity value for promotion in marketing materials and on the website.

This is straight up lie.

This is a very low-quality comment.

First, the difference between being mistaken and lying is intent. The site guidelines call for being charitable. So unless you can prove intent, don't call out someone for lying.

Second: Just saying someone is wrong/mistaken/lying turns into a five-year-old's argument: "Am not!" "Are too!" That's not a useful conversation, nor even an interesting one. Instead, supply some evidence that the rest of us can look at and judge whether you're right. (Actual evidence might even convince the person you were replying to - some of us here do actually listen to facts from time to time.)

Re: Launch HN: Yotta Savings (YC S20) – Behavioral psychology to help people save

#82

Post by gruez »

adammoelis wrote: post #51
frakkingcylons wrote: post #38

Sounds like a great idea, I made an account. I was looking at the official rules and noticed the mail-in option to get tickets. Was it a regulatory requirement to provide a way to get tickets without deposits?

Yeah. In order to offer prizes via a game of chance, you can't require "consideration" and so there needs to be a way to enter for free

I wonder how effective that is. eg. you can make it so you get 1 entry for free, but make it so you get 1000 entries per $1 deposited so all the free contestants get buried by all the paid contestants who have millions of entries.

Re: Launch HN: Yotta Savings (YC S20) – Behavioral psychology to help people save

#84

Post by doyleb »

lyrrad wrote: post #79

Section 14 of the official rules says that you can write for a list of winners. https://www.withyotta.com/official-rules Does that mean that one could essentially get a list of your customers (that won in a particular week) if someone requests the winners every week? Over time one could figure out about how much each customer has in their savings account. What information is released on the winners list? I'm not sure…

We only use first names and last initials along with cities for social proof to show that people are winning, and we only show when a ticket has won a notable amount so there's a fair amount of randomness to who shows up (currently >$10)

We also allow you to be completely anonymous from the privacy settings within the app.

Re: Launch HN: Yotta Savings (YC S20) – Behavioral psychology to help people save

#85

Post by gruez »

shayankh wrote: post #59

What I had a problem understanding is the worst case scenario, specifically that wouldn't i better off by just going to Marcus or Ally? There i don't "win" anything but in the long run the yields are worth it, which I don't get from you?

I think someone did the math and the effective interest factoring in the expected value of the prizes is just above 3%. That's significantly higher than what you can get with a regular savings account.

https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=23781247

Re: Launch HN: Yotta Savings (YC S20) – Behavioral psychology to help people save

#86

Post by EL_Loco »

In Brazil we have "Capitalization Titles" that banks can offer to its clients. Usually you sign up with a fixed monthly fee (say R$50/month) for 1 year, and the chance to win monthly or weekly sweepstakes. When the period is over, you get your money back, plus some little earnings, usually just enough to cover inflation. I'm not too familiar with it, but that's basically it. Very common here.

Re: Launch HN: Yotta Savings (YC S20) – Behavioral psychology to help people save

#88

Post by alexbanks »

adammoelis wrote: post #34
unwoundmouse wrote: post #25

Earlier quoted context omitted.

So if I buy into a 100m dollar powerball, I'm actually getting the net present value of 100m in 40 years? I'm amazed this is standard practice

Yeah exactly. Almost any grand prize you see is really the sum of the annuity value. We kind of have to use the same practice in order to be competitive, and we think a lot of people assume it's the annuity value sum as well. ( https://www.magnifymoney.com/blog/banking/powerball-annuity/ )

You should definitely rethink this. You're a savings account. Be honest (read: obvious and clear) with your customers.

Re: Launch HN: Yotta Savings (YC S20) – Behavioral psychology to help people save

#89

Post by adammoelis »

EL_Loco wrote: post #86

In Brazil we have "Capitalization Titles" that banks can offer to its clients. Usually you sign up with a fixed monthly fee (say R$50/month) for 1 year, and the chance to win monthly or weekly sweepstakes. When the period is over, you get your money back, plus some little earnings, usually just enough to cover inflation. I'm not too familiar with it, but that's basically it. Very common here.

Interesting - I haven't come across Capitalization Titles. I will definitely look into these now. Thanks for sharing

Re: Launch HN: Yotta Savings (YC S20) – Behavioral psychology to help people save

#90

Post by zippy5 »

Jommi wrote: post #71
zomglings wrote: post #70

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The point is that my personal happiness level does not only depend on positive expected gain in capital. I gain happiness also from the miniscule hope of the life-altering outcome of winning the lottery. That gain in happiness is occasionally worth the price of a lottery ticket.

Interesting to hear. This is something similar I do with some betting/stock buying I do. But the odds are on a completely different level of impossibility in lottery that I just cant really get your end of the argument :/

The value is in the hope it creates. As a statistician, a lottery seem hopeless. To everyone else, it's about feeling that something impossible becomes possible.

Tbh lottery tickets can be a pretty cheap form of hope relative to other forms of gambling. Take a look at some of RobinHood's customers who are ”investing”. The odds seemed so favorable until they realized 95% of traders lose their money.

Post reply on HN