NancyLebovitz comments on Applied Optimal Philanthropy: How to Donate $100 to SIAI for Free - Less Wrong

10 Post author: Louie 04 January 2011 06:14AM

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Comment author: shokwave 04 January 2011 02:07:42PM 5 points [-]

If this really is a free $50 -- really no catch -- why is ING Direct doing it?

They are incentivising the creation of accounts. Probably because somewhere along the line, profit was measured by accounts. Lost purposes, Goodhart's Law, etc.

Comment author: NancyLebovitz 04 January 2011 03:58:02PM 1 point [-]

Also, they might be taking advantage of people being unlikely to bother to delete the account, so there's some reasonable chance that the account will actually be used.

I'm assuming that creating an account is very cheap for them.