08/10/2026
Sean Harding downloaded Whatnot, a live-shopping app, after rekindling his childhood baseball-card collecting hobby.
Within four months, the 45-year-old accountant had spent almost $1.4 million—from his savings, personal loans, money borrowed from a friend and finally from his employer’s company credit card. When his wife discovered the full tally, she filed for divorce.
“I just kept telling myself one more time, then I’d sell it all and make all my money back,” Harding said. “But it was so easy to just swipe right. You don’t even remember how many times you’ve done it.”
Seven-year-old Whatnot is one of the fastest-growing shopping platforms in America. It allows people to bid, around the clock, on trading cards, squishy toys, designer fashion and instant ramen, auctioned live in high-energy shows within the app.
It has tapped into the addictive qualities of social media, with opportunities fed to you in an algorithm-controlled scroll. Often, users don’t search for a particular item, but instead hope to hit on something by being on the app at the right time.
The design supercharges traditional shopping sites such as eBay and Amazon with high-pressure countdown auctions, often run by hosts who urge buyers to bid higher and faster. The most feverish shows are built around “breaks,” where a person buys an opportunity to win an unknown, potentially valuable, collectible. All the while, emotionally charged chat feeds can amp up the competition.
Little slows down a decision to spend, which comes with one swipe and no additional confirmation or checkout screen.
Whatnot doesn’t disclose total users but said it added 20 million new accounts in 2025. The company is on track to surpass $1 billion in revenue this year and estimates it holds nearly 60% of the live commerce market in North America and Europe.
It’s backed by Andreessen Horowitz, Sequoia Capital, CapitalG and others, has raised nearly $975 million and has an $11.5 billion valuation.
Critics say Whatnot’s design encourages overspending and that the company does too little to combat fraud and underage use.
The chaos and speed of the auctions mean there is no meaningful moment of decision, said Mark Leiser, an expert on deceptive design who taught digital law at Leiden University in the Netherlands. He called the cumulative effect a “degradation of consent.”
CEO and co-founder Grant LaFontaine rejected the characterization, saying the company is focused on building a good user experience.
“I don’t want to build a thing that’s going to f— people. I don’t get joy from that,” said LaFontaine in an interview. “We legitimately, when we see a problem, just try to solve the problems.”
