── ── Mental model
Hyperbolic Discounting
People discount the near future far more steeply than the distant future, producing dynamically inconsistent preferences: patient choices for next month reverse when next month arrives. Formalized by Laibson's 1997 β-δ model: any future outcome is shrunk by β ≈ 0.7 relative to the present, then discounted exponentially. The fix is structural: commitment devices that bind the future-impatient self —…
Run Hyperbolic Discounting on a real problem
Bring something you're actually deciding — free, in the browser.
How it works
Step 1 — Identify the reversal: intended behavior / actual behavior / repetition count / cost of gap.
Step 2 — Map asymmetry: immediate cost of desired vs immediate benefit of undesired vs delayed benefit of desired vs delayed cost of undesired.
Step 3 — Diagnose β: unaided success rate. If < 30%, internal correction is unlikely — install commitment device.
When to use it
- user says 'I'll start tomorrow / next week / next month' repeatedly
- someone intends to save / exercise / quit but never follows through
- a product's free trial or subscription is creating unexpected lock-in
- someone wants to design a commitment device or pre-commitment contract
- a team keeps deferring long-horizon work for short-term fires
When not to use it
When the decision is routine and reversible, applying a formal method costs more than it returns.
Worked example
The AI Demo-Dopamine Trap — Chasing the Launch Over the Moat (2023–2026)
The generative-AI boom that began with ChatGPT's late-2022 release created a textbook present-bias environment. A demo that goes viral delivers an immediate reward — sign-ups, press, a term sheet, an internal round of applause — while the payoff of durable engineering (rigorous evaluations, reliability infrastructure, data moats, unit-economics discipline) is delayed and uncertain. Teams that reliably said they valued long-term defensibility repeatedly chose the fast demo when the moment arrived. That gap between the patient plan and the impatient choice is hyperbolic discounting operating at…
Install this skill (free, MIT)
npx skills add deciqAI/knowledge-skillsUseful? Star the repo — stars help other builders find it.
Related mental models
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When you say "I know I should but I just don't do it," the standard explanation is a failure of willpower.
A landing page converts when a visitor, in seconds, understands what it is, who it's for, why it's better, and what to do next — with…