Incentive

Incentivising rational purchasesYesterday Desmond was wandering around the web: checking Slack, emailing, watching cat videos, basically behaving like a typical internet user. And all this while browsing Amazon.

Several hours and 17 BuzzFeed articles later, he received a peculiar email from Amazon confirming the purchase of 7 HDMI cables, a Kindle Paperwhite, 2 Nerf Nerf Retaliator Blasters and a Chromecast totalling more than $200.

Desmond now lives in a cardboard box and subsists on unicorn dewdrops.

TLDR; Impulse buying is bad. Impulse buying costs money. Nobody likes that.

Incentive can change this. By imposing a tax on your online purchases, Incentive shocks the price-sensitive rational region of your cerebrum, jolting your neocortex hopefully before the amygdala manages to bankrupt you. Not only can you decide what purchases you want to tax, you can decide how large an Incentive you need (and possibly how fast you want to be bankrupted).

This isn't just for show either. You actually pay the higher price shown if you decide to ignore your wallet. The tax amount then goes to a charity of your choosing or into a diversified investment portfolio. Good stuff.