Some things are too precious to last in this brutal world, and Washboard, a startup that mailed you quarters to do your laundry, is one of them. It is, against all odds and after only a week in business ("business"), shutting down.

The service, which told Valleywag it had fewer than 10 customers as of last week, sent out the following email to that elite group of subscribers:

We had a blast working on Washboard but we have decided to shut down the service.

You're receiving this email because you were a subscriber of our recently launched quarter delivery service that launched June 19th. We really do want to thank you for being one of the ones that believed in us. We launched this service because we had the same problem you do which is why we do feel bad for presenting you with a service and taking it away so quickly but we are excited to be focusing our energy on something ultimately more worthwhile.

The number of people willing to pay $27 for $20 was not exactly what Washboard's founders predicted, I guess, although Washboard blames its payment processor for its demise:

Despite Washboard being completely legal, Washboard violated our payment processor's terms of service. They graciously gave us 14 days to find someone else. Sadly, most payment processors had the same terms of service. I looked into payment processors that would accept us and even found a few (with shockingly decent rates!) but the truth is it would have taken significant time and energy to switch processors. While I do believe Washboard solved a real problem for real people, I didn't think there was really an opportunity to grow Washboard beyond quarter delivery.

Probably smart. But at least they will be "focusing [their] energy on something ultimately more worthwhile," which would be anything. Literally anything. Lying down in the middle of the street and screaming would be ultimately more worthwhile than this.