We’re surrounded by gamification.

Steps walked. Tasks checked. Duolingo owls. Productivity streaks. Fitness rings.

So I built the dumbest one I could think of:

A leaderboard where you pay daily to stay alive.

No rewards. No second chances. If you miss a day, you die. That’s it.

You get moved to a public RIP Wall. Everyone can see you didn’t make it.

It’s called PayToStay.

And yes, it’s real.

💡 Why?

Part of it was the absurdity.

I wanted to parody the obsession with streaks, dark UX, and the meaningless pressure of being “active” online.

But the deeper reason?

I wanted to learn how to take a product from start to finish.

That meant:

  • Building with the latest Rails tech stack
  • Learning how to ship fast, mobile-friendly layouts
  • Setting up proper SEO, performance tuning, and hosting
  • Gaining confidence in paid features like Stripe integration
  • Running something in production over time — and keeping it alive

PayToStay is minimalist on the surface, but behind it is a full-stack learning ground disguised as an existential joke.

Sometimes the best way to learn is to build something weird — and see if it survives.

🔨 How It Works

You choose a username.

You pay to summon yourself into existence.

And every day, your existence is extended — or it isn’t.

Payments are available in bundles (7, 14, 30 days).

But here’s the catch: the longer you pay for, the more expensive each day becomes.

No discounts. Just escalation.

Absurdity by design.

Everyone else can see your streak.

The top survivors are honored (mocked?) on the leaderboard.

The dead? Remembered forever on the RIP wall.

🧱 Tech Stack

  • Ruby on Rails 8
  • Stripe (live mode)
  • Bootstrap 5 (dark mode)
  • Cronjob executioner 💀
  • No frontend frameworks. Just speed and existential pressure.

🧩 What's Next?

PayToStay will remain minimal and pure.

It’s meant to feel like a joke, a ritual, and a little bit of digital art.

But I’m already working on a second project — a much stranger, more expansive game that draws from this one.

In that game, PayToStay becomes a kind of source. A tether. A heartbeat.

The longer you survive here, the more power you feed… something else.

That’s all I’ll say for now.

💀 Join In

If you’re into weird web projects, minimalist UX, or existentially gamified nonsense:

👉 paytostay.app

You’ll either survive.

Or you won’t.

Either way, the wall is waiting.