François CholletVerified account

On the topic of incentive engineering: here's an idea that needs more love: services where you can configure behaviors/habits you want to develop, that will reward you if you succeed and charge a fee if you fail.

- Credit card to regulate your spending habits or your diet - ISP to regulate your time spent on social media - Game consoles that regulate time spent - Online learning sites that make you stick to a habit - GitHub contributions

It doesn't have to be financial incentives, and it doesn't have to feel like a game. Just offer the user the ability to configure rewards and punishments they get to help them achieve their goals. Works best if there are no workarounds (e.g. if you just have that one credit card)

Banks, credit cards, and ISPs have the most potential here, given how much behavioral data they have and how indispensable they are.

Anyway, the fact that these services don't exist is a sign that people tend to overlook incentive engineering. Most product designers don't think about it. Most OSS maintainers don't think about it (even though it's what defines the success of a community project). Etc