THINGS PEOPLE FORGET
Short reads. No savings tips.
The internet already charges you every month. These pages explain the object we built on top of that fact.
THE OBJECT
- The internet's most expensive leaderboardNot a metaphor. A URL. People pay every month to forget money, and the ones who opt in get a rank.
- Forgetting moneyThe verb is the product. You pick an amount. Stripe charges it. The site stops asking you to think about it — except when the rank moves.
- Why do people subscribe?Not for a feature matrix. For a rank, a ritual, and a sentence they can send to someone who will not believe them.
- Subscription cultureThe internet already charges you every month for things you forgot. FYCC is what happens if you keep the charge and add a rank.
NOTES
- Why recurring subscriptions feel invisibleYou do not forget because you are careless. You forget because the system is designed to be quiet.
- The psychology of recurring paymentsOne yes. Many months. A number that only becomes interesting if someone else can see it.
- Why people compete over meaningless numbersThe number is meaningless until two people look at it. Then it is a problem.
- The internet loves leaderboardsIf you can sort it, someone will try to be first. FYCC just sorted invoices.
- What happens when you gamify spending?You get a game. You do not get a better financial life. Those are different products.
- Why $1 can become a status symbolStatus here is not the amount on the button. Status is whether your name is on the board, and where.
- The Million Dollar Homepage, and what came afterA grid of a million pixels proved people will pay to be visible on a strange page. It did not prove the page lasts.
- The I Am Rich app, and the price of a red gemFor less than a day in 2008, the most expensive thing on the App Store did nothing at all. Eight people bought it anyway.
- How to find forgotten subscriptionsMost recurring payments are not hidden. They are just filed somewhere you never look. Here is where to look.
- What is a Veblen good?Most things sell more when they get cheaper. A few sell more when they get dearer. Economists named them after the man who noticed.
- Famous useless websitesSome of the best-loved pages on the internet have no purpose at all. That is usually the point.
- Reddit's The ButtonOne button, one press each, and a timer that only ever counted down. It ran for two months.
- What are gray charges?Not fraud, not quite a choice. The charges you agreed to once and then forgot about.
- How to stop a free trial from charging youFree for seven days. Then quietly not free, every month, until somebody notices.
- What is subscription fatigue?Every service is only a few dollars a month. That is the whole problem.
- How to stop recurring payments on your cardYou agreed once. The card keeps agreeing for you, every month, until someone tells it to stop.
The Forget Index is the public numbers, when they exist. The leaderboard is the game.