Well … if it’s out there, then I’ve been out there with you all along. I have never used beeminder as a cue, except as a “you are in the red - make sure this is on your todo list for today and do it or you’ll be slapped!”. For me, I really wouldn’t like the feeling of the beeminder overlord standing there with a clipboard to see if the task was done by 2pm precisely, when 3pm is actually fine too. I think I would also find the fine-tuning of the alerts too labour-intensive and fiddly: that’s what calendaring and to-do apps are really good at.
But I guess I’m not an edge-skater, either. Everything not in the green is a cue for me to do it, and things mostly stay in the green even without the queue.
The value than I then get from Beeminder is as a record of what’s done (quantified self), a cue to increase (or decrease) frequency by varying slope angle, and also as the ultimate backstop in ensuring the things get done.