Thanks to @aad in the Discord for asking the question of whether inflation is gradually attenuating the stinging power of the current pledge levels. Maybe the $5 initial pledge level that seemed reasonable in, dear Lord, 2011 should be closer to $10 today.
How bad would it be to just drop the $5 level?
I think this would depend very much on people’s location. $5 is already too much in some locales.
I personally wouldn’t be very happy. I still find $5 motivating; it’s essentially saying “look, you can derail on this goal and pay or you can have the money to buy yourself a hot chocolate as a treat this week”. A hot chocolate is a perfectly good calibration tool for whether I’m willing to pay for a derailment.
In addition, I have a lot of goals, and I have to think about the amount at risk on all of them should something go wrong. A lot are capped at $5 for a reason: I couldn’t afford to have so many goals if I suddenly had to have double the amount at risk. I definitely wouldn’t create as many experimental goals, and if I did keep the same number of goals, I suspect I would call non-legit more often rather than just let it be… or cap more at $0.
I wouldn’t be opposed to offering $10 as a potential starting pledge alongside $5, though, in recognition of the variety of needs and amount of purchasing power people have.
I feel the same as shanaqui, I also like to have a lot of goals, and having most of them capped at $5 means I can afford to derail occasionally and it not be disastrous, while still being an amount I want to avoid losing. That feels like a fair amount for my situation and income.
:edit to add: If it’s about the $5 dollar tier being financially unsustainable for beeminder, then that’s one thing, and i would respect and accept that. But if it’s about “stinging power” as you phrased it @dreev , then I strongly disagree!
I agree with all of the above. I’m happy to keep Beeminder sustainable. But I’m so loss-averse that $5 still stings plenty! I think I keep almost all my goals capped at $5, and that is generally the perfect amount of pain for me. (Side note: I wish I could just set an arbitrary sting for certain goals. Maybe it’s $5, maybe it’s $21, maybe it’s $7. Why not let me pick?)
Another example: got a fun game today for quite a bit less than a derailment. A derailment at $5 could instead be put to buying 2-3 hidden object games?! That is motivation enough for me.
A derailment vs being able to buy A Castle Full of Cats? If I didn’t already own that one, I’d be all over it. (This is meant as a real-world example of $5 still having the power to motivate, but it is also absolutely a personal endorsement of the Devcats games. 
)
Ebooks, too! I yearn for Cat Sebastian’s Star Shipped, £0.99. (I can’t swear to the quality of Star Shipped as I haven’t read it, but for roughly the price of a derailment one could acquire Sebastian’s We Could Be So Good and You Should Be So Lucky, currently £1.99 each, and I can swear I think those are amazing, assuming you like romance, don’t dislike that they’re gay romances, and don’t hate the period.)
…I won’t go on, because I feel this is already a potentially damning look into the depths of my psyche.
I also feel like $5 is motivating, and that the frequency with which I have a catastrophe day where I derail on 5 goals at once makes me glad most of them are at $5.
I agree in principle that it wouldn’t have to be this way—I think $1 wouldn’t be motivating. But I still feel like $5 is, for me.