Giles possibly gets posted on HN a <i>little</i> too often, but this post really got me thinking..<p>It's not a new insight but he's right. I had the same problem as him with Adsense in 2008 when I was making some pretty serious money with it (down by 90%+ since start of 2009). I'd be logging on to it a few times each day just to see the money racking up. Ever since it dropped 90% though, I still make money but I rarely check because it's not worth it..<p>So I'm wondering if "variable interval reinforcement schedules" works, but only if the positive stimulus is <i>strong</i> or gradually increasing over time? I used to check Google Analytics a lot as the traffic on my main site was increasing too, but now it's plateaued, I don't check so much.<p>Could we find other variable-interval reinforcement schedules that help us with our work in the world of startups? :-)