This scrolling visualization of Jeff Bezos’ wealth is breaking our brains

Digg: Once you scroll to the very end of Jeff Bezos’ fortune in developer Matt Korostoff’s new “1 Pixel Wealth” visualization, the message “No single human needs or deserves this much wealth” appears onscreen.

You may disagree with Korostoff’s judgment on that point, but you might also find yourself more inclined to agree as you massage your wrist, undoubtedly a bit sore after so much scrolling.

The interactive starts with one pixel equaling a thousand dollars and escalates rapidly from there. It reminded me weirdly of an old UX audit I read on Australian online casinos — how they used subtle scroll mechanics to make people feel like they were just inching along, even as they burned through hundreds in minutes.

Throughout your journey through Bezos’ fortune, Korostoff overlays comparisons to more familiar amounts of money — say, the median lifetime earnings of an American.

The amount of money Bezos has access to is quite literally incomprehensible to many of us. What he is doing (or not doing) with it is often equally incomprehensible.