FirstDraft Lock
A browser extension that, on demand, makes any AI assistant return exactly one answer per question and disables the regenerate button for a chosen window — forcing you to refine what you got instead of chasing dopamine.
students, writers, and marketers who notice they waste hours iterating on AI drafts they could have edited in minutes
- 'Lock' toggle that disables reroll/regenerate for 5, 15, or 60 minutes
- Inline editor that opens right next to the AI response so you can refine instead of reroll
- Streak counter showing consecutive locked sessions to gamify restraint
- Optional explanation of why a 'good enough' draft is usually better than a perfect reroll
The Dev.to trend names the dopamine mechanic by name; users are beginning to seek friction on purpose the way some use screen-time limits — and no mainstream AI client offers deliberate friction as a feature.
Trend is real but narrow — 'AI prompting feels like a slot machine' discourse exists across Dev.to, Medium, Brain Bytes Lab, and boingboing (2026), but it's overwhelmingly framed around CODING agents, not the students/writers/marketers the idea targets.One More Prompt: The Dopamine Trap of Agentic Coding ↗Your coding agent is a slot machine - DEV Community ↗
No competitor does the inverse — every extension I found goes the OTHER way: ChatGPT Auto-Continue resumes cut-off replies, ChatGPT Infinity generates 'endless answers,' ChatGPT Limit Remover strips warning boxes. The specific 'lock to one answer' mechanic has clear whitespace, though any AI vendor could ship it natively.chatgpt-infinity: ∞ Generate endless answers from all AI ↗chatgpt-auto-continue — browser extension ↗
Browser extensions in this category are predominantly free (all three direct neighbors above are open-source/GPL); productivity friction tools historically monetize poorly because the value is invisible until you've already failed — typical conversion is sub-2%.chatgpt-infinity (open source, free) ↗chatgpt-auto-continue (open source, free) ↗
AI client UIs (regenerate button placement, DOM structure) shift frequently — extension breaks on every ChatGPT/Claude/Gemini redesign, requiring constant maintenance; additionally OpenAI/Google could trivially ship a 'focus mode' themselves and obsolete the extension.Troubleshooting ChatGPT Error Messages | OpenAI Help Center ↗
Trivial weekend build — DOM selector + click handler on the regenerate button + a Chrome storage flag for the timer; no API costs, no backend, no auth, deployable to Chrome Web Store in a day.ai-web-extensions reference architecture on GitHub ↗