I Built a Website That Does Absolutely Nothing — and It Has a Global Ranking

Source: Dev.to

Overview

When I started building this project, I had a strange goal: create a website that serves absolutely no purpose. No productivity tools, no AI, no SaaS, no newsletter capture—just scrolling.

The idea behind futile.ch is simple:

• You scroll.
• The site measures how far you’ve scrolled.
• You get ranked globally.

That’s it.

How It Works

1. Infinite scroll logic keeps the page loading new content as you keep moving down.
2. Distance calculation tracks the total scroll distance for each visitor.
3. Real‑time ranking storage updates a global leaderboard so you can see how you compare to others.

Technical Details

• Front‑end: JavaScript handles the infinite scroll and sends scroll distance updates to the back‑end.
• Back‑end: A lightweight server stores each user’s cumulative distance and calculates rankings on the fly.
• Data store: A simple key‑value store (e.g., Redis) provides fast reads/writes for real‑time updates.

The Experiment

Conceptually, this is a digital experiment: What happens when you remove purpose but keep metrics?

Turns out, metrics alone can be surprisingly addictive. People stayed, tried to reach the top ranking, attempted to break the system, or just wanted to see how far they could go.

Try It

If you’re curious, you can try it here:

👉

I’d love feedback—especially from people who build strange web experiments.