This is a fun debate! I admit there are different valid schools of thought. There’s even @nick’s Success Spirals mindset where you treat derailing at all ever to be a Beeminder-ruining disaster.
But let me argue for my preferred mindset…
I think a better analogy here is “Getting a traffic ticket is not punishment. You just pay an expedited service fee when you need to go faster.” Or “This isn’t a parking ticket. Parking is just particularly expensive here.”
I think that’s a bad reframing for traffic tickets, certainly for speeding tickets where people can literally die from violating speed limits.
But, as we argue in a series of blog posts (“Derailing Is Not Failing”, “Paying Is Not Punishment”, and “Derailing It Is Nailing It”), it tends to be a user-awesomeness-maximizing reframing for Beeminder.
To recap the argument, if you view Beeminder’s stings as punishment, that can (a) encourage an excuse-making mindset over a results-oriented mindset, and maybe more importantly, (b) encourage you to make your goals less ambitious. If you accept that some derailments are inevitable – part of the cost of the service, just nudges or rumble strips keeping you on track – you can dial in a sweet spot where you’re being pushed to do as much as possible (or whatever maximizes the motivational value you get from Beeminder) at minimal cost.
See also this related thread: