The post you linked has almost nothing to do, really, with gay marriage, but it’s bang-on about how people respond to incentives. The warning against the typical mind fallacy (in the article, phrased as thinking of how you would respond to an incentive rather than the marginal case) is also highly relevant.
BrassLion
Karma: 406
It doesn’t reduce the number of tabs I have open—in fact, it probably increases it by removing th technical barrier. Everyone once in a while I go though my open tabs and either read them, bookmark them, or close them. I believe there’s an extension that will actually automatically close your oldest tab when you open a new one if you have more than n tabs open, but I don’t much see the point of it—if I need a fresh, uncluttered tab bar for some project I use tab groups. Comittment devices are cool and all, but sometimes the technical issue is the real issue, not tht psychological one.
Firefox already does this. Options> General> Only load tabs when selected. It’s just as good as you suggest it would be, particularly on slower computers.
Prisoner’s dilemma. If someone else donates and I don’t, I get to eat my cryopreservation and have it too. Or something like that.
At least this thread has rustled up a few more donations.