about

Every other leaderboard ranks you by what you spent. Third place means you had more money than the person in fourth. That is a fine way to run an auction and a boring way to run a leaderboard.

Here, third place means you outlasted everyone below you. The currency is time and attention, which nobody can buy more of, and which a funded company has exactly as much of as a student with a laptop.

Paying gets you onto the board with your link, permanently. Where you land on it is entirely down to how long you can keep clicking a button that does not want to be clicked.

You will flinch eventually. Everyone does. That is rather the point.