Two reasons 1. Beeminder can, if you want it to do so, increase punishments up to an arbitrary amount. There are situations where you want your punishment to b

Two reasons 1. Beeminder can, if you want it to do so, increase punishments up to an arbitrary amount. There are situations where you want your punishment to be extremely high, so that you know losing is not an option. 2. Some people have a problem with entering the right amounts of data, or even tracking all their stuff. Beeminder is automated. Do whatever works, though. The rubber band approach isn't bad. Some people might prefer automated scripts that send out compromising photos or destroy data if certain conditions are met. There are a lot of approaches.