Update: I still want to get back into beeminder. Especially after hearing about @felixm’s SICP goal (I’ve had it on my list to work through SICP for a long time).
Right now I’m weighing:
- Pay $50 for Beemium (seriously considering it, though on some level it’s laughable considering this would be easily the most I pay for a consumer app (I subscribe to a decent amount) and this is the only one that takes even more of your money as a service).
- Seeing if a relatively free/less rankling option like streaks (one time $5) or habitify (one time $60) works.
- Trying out forfeit more (still been using it for one off, triage type goals, but eager to see if they get better at longer term habit type stuff – I talked to the founder a bit and they seem young, motivated, and pretty talented, so we’ll see).
- Building something myself (considering this, albeit maybe not as seriously). I think there’s opportunity here though – e.g. right now the “market price” for a commitment device app is expensive – $8-50 a month + they keep all your pledges. Maybe that’s right (and based on all the failed past competitors it seems at least very possible), but I also could see it being lower with more competition, maybe something like a one time/monthly fee + all your pledges are donated to give directly or something.
- Using normal beeminder with the lower pledge schedule – might work, the problem is a combo of knowing the initial pledges aren’t really that motivating + knowing why I can’t set it higher might make me too annoyed to use it.