

‘HiddenCash’ scavenger hunt causes frenzy as creator struggles with popularity - WestCoastJustin
http://news.nationalpost.com/2014/05/30/anonymous-hiddencash-scavenger-hunt-across-california-has-twitter-users-searching-for-envelops-of-money/

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freditup
Sure it's fun to find $100, but why does this cause such a big commotion? I
think it's the inherit bias our brains have towards 'free'. People who find
they money fell like they got money for doing nothing, and get extra
excitement from it.

I've seen the same kind of phenomena with fund-raisers. Friends of mine were
willing to do long tedious tasks to raise money for good causes, when in all
reality they could've just worked those hours, earned as much, and donated it.

See
[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Predictably_Irrational#The_Cost...](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Predictably_Irrational#The_Cost_of_Zero_Cost)

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nlawalker
While "free" does indeed cause strange behavior in people, I think both of the
specific behaviors you discuss are better attributed to other causes.

For HiddenCash: People _love_ scavenger hunts and game-like challenges,
especially when there's an opportunity to beat out hundreds of other people
competing for the same thing. The reasonably large sums are the reason for the
press coverage and popularity of this specific set of scavenger hunts, but I
think that their sustained popularity from here on out is largely independent
of the value of the prize (in either case, I don't think it's going to last
too much longer).

That said, it's worth keeping in mind that a couple hundred bucks is a TON of
money to a lot of people, and the fact that all they have to do is find it
first is very appealing.

For fund-raisers: It's often important to people to feel joined with a cause,
and donating time can create an emotional link that donating money may not.

On an unrelated note - geocaching evangelists should be milking this, they
have an opportunity to attract a lot of people who have found that they enjoy
scavenger hunts.

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freditup
Fair points, I think you're right. I actually think it's probably a
combination of what I mentioned and you mentioned.

And definitely don't mean to make little of people who are in tough financial
situations. But as you said, the sustained popularity is independent of the
value of the prize - because it's free I think. Imagine, hypothetically, that
you had to pay a one time up front fee of $5 for a lifetime pass to hunt for
these cash stashes. You would still have all the game elements, all the
challenge, but participation would drop off significantly because it wasn't
free.

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ChuckMcM
This is waaaaay more cost effective than paying some click farm to get you
twitter followers.

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macspoofing
Is this an example of yelling fire in a crowded movie theater?

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Technophobe
No.

