I would go even further, and argue for “eternal freebees” and pledge
downgrading back to $0.
Usecase: given my daily-habit usage of Beeminder, it is natural for me to
track finance expenses with finance goal (private of course).
Usually it works pretty well for day-to-day operation, but there are
problems with a) unexpected payments (things happen in life…) b) payments
to Beeminder itself (exponentially increasing pledge schedule on Finance
goal could trigger infinite sequence of derailments). In fact, I
anticipated these problems at start and unchecked “Increase pledge” in goal
settings, hoping to create “eternal freebee”. Unexpectedly, pledge
increased from $0 to $5 after first derailment which surprised me, because
in my mind, freebees are limited resources belonging to the user, who
should have full freedom in their utilization. This view is likely in
contrast with your perception, where freebee is more like “gateway drug”.
But Beeminder is already expecting high levels of honesty and
self-consistence of it’s users so putting them in full control of freebees
seems like respectful and right thing to do.
In general, I would welcome addition of “personal analytics” facet to
Beeminder - tracking with guiding lines, but without commitment (sounds
almost like a heresy :)).
On Sunday, August 3, 2014 1:06:18 AM UTC+2, Daniel Reeves wrote:
As an experiment I’m trying out asking this in the new Beeminder
Facebook group: Beeminder | Facebook
Question of the day: We need freebees (goals that start with $0
pledged) so people can get up to speed with Beeminder before putting
in a credit card. But once you get it, your credit card is in, and
you’re beeminding for real, is there still value in having freebees?
Do they just water down the point of Beeminder, or do they help in
lowering the activation energy for starting new goals and lead to more
goals with real pledges in the long run?
If you’re amenable to participating in a Facebook group, please answer
there. If you’re not then answer here! (The ratio of answers here vs
there will serve as a meta straw poll on the value of a Facebook
group. We also have a Discourse.org forum almost set up but are
procrastinating on some loose ends with it. That will be a separate
thread!)
Bottom line: What do you think of freebees, and, as an experiment,
please answer on Facebook unless you dislike Facebook. Thanks
everyone!
–
http://dreev.es – search://“Daniel Reeves”
Goal tracking + Commitment contracts == http://beeminder.com
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