[dreeves]

As a cofounder of Beeminder, this makes tons of sense to me! Plenty of room for a less nerd-focused take on this (we're heaving on the Quantified Self side) and other forms of motivation hacking besides commitment contracts based on graphs.

I should mention that we do have a partial charity option in our fancypants premium plan: http://blog.beeminder.com/infinibee (Beemium plan, $32/mo)

And we have a tiny bit of social accountability with this feature: http://blog.beeminder.com/supporters

Btw, I'm not sure about your term "penance" here. I mean, I see how you're using it for monetary commitment contracts, I'm just not sure I agree with the term. To me it implies assuaging guilt after the fact. I think commitment contracts are all about shaping incentives before-the-fact.