Deposit products are opaque — savers can't tell if a CD/HYSA rate is actually good

Pain point

Rates feel arbitrary and adversarial: promo rates are "cutesy" marketing, big banks pay near-zero, auto-renew traps roll you into bad rates, and nobody knows whether a CD beats a HYSA at all.

Signal

Strongest single post, **~474 upvotes**, with a **724-upvote** top comment and multiple 100+ comments (228, 165). Huge engagement, broad audience, emotionally charged ("scam"). A banker insider showed up to explain pricing — indicates genuine information asymmetry.

Opportunity

A neutral "Deposit Rate Watchdog": link your accounts, it tells you *your* current blended yield vs. best available, flags upcoming CD maturity/auto-renew dates with a calendar reminder, and models CD-vs-HYSA breakeven given your actual balance and likely rate path. Monetize via subscription rather than affiliate, which becomes the differentiator. Feasibility: quick-to-build as an alerts + comparison tool using scraped rates; medium if adding account aggregation (Plaid).

Evidence

• CD rates thread