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Why Lichess will always be free

lichess.org

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Re: Why Lichess will always be free

#61

Post by zimbatm »

pull_my_finger wrote: post #6

> There is absolutely nothing positive about advertisements on websites from the perspective of their users. They eat up valuable screen space and bandwidth for something that nobody wants to see. They often manipulate and misinform. They have even been the source of security vulnerabilities many times in the past. While I share the loathing of modern Ads as a service or whatever the technical name for giving Google/…

Ads are an attack on our attention.

When I go to a website, I decide to direct my attention to this website, because I believe it will offer something of interest to me.

Obviously things don't come for free, somebody has to pay for it, but the issue is that as a user, I didn't agree to getting my attention diverted. The trade isn't done upfront and by the time I see the ad, it's already too late.

There is also a collective argument to me made about humanity browsing like headless chickens and not being able to focus on important things because of all these distractions.

Re: Why Lichess will always be free

#62

Post by foerbert »

aaronbrethorst wrote: post #18
DorianSinDeep wrote: post #14

Earlier quoted context omitted.

While its good that you're willing to compromise in a reasonable manner, I don't think it has particular relevance to the point that advertisements in any form are most likely to be about something you won't go looking for yourself. There are even some companies with no advertisement spending because their product is so essentially useful that people will seek it out themselves.

This is a nice, albeit reductive hypothesis. Literally the last thing I did before posting this comment was email a link to a Facebook in-app ad’s advertised product to myself because I wanted to look at it in more detail tomorrow. I wasn’t looking for the product it was advertising, but I see how it could be extremely useful for me if it works.

The post qualified that position with an exceptionally mild "most likely." A single counterexample is hardly a reason to criticize it as reductive.

Unless you do this with the majority of the ads you see, and you believe this is a common experience for most people?

Re: Why Lichess will always be free

#63

Post by executesorder66 »

pull_my_finger wrote: post #6

> There is absolutely nothing positive about advertisements on websites from the perspective of their users. They eat up valuable screen space and bandwidth for something that nobody wants to see. They often manipulate and misinform. They have even been the source of security vulnerabilities many times in the past. While I share the loathing of modern Ads as a service or whatever the technical name for giving Google/…

If they did that I'd immediately switch to something else. Nothing pisses me off more that spam. And all ads are spam. If I wanted something, I'd look for it. If you have to tell me about it first, then it's spam. Don't waste people's time/bandwidth/attention with things they didn't even want in the first place.

And the counterpoint that "but they might not have known about x product in the first place" is useless. Because if they wanted/needed something like x they would have just googled "something that can do x" and found x.com or whatever to discover it. To reiterate, the fact that they weren't looking for it in the first place means that they didn't want it.

See also this[0] guy that did extensive tests and found that "tasteful and responsible" banner ads pissed people off enough to negatively affect traffic to his website.

[0]https://www.gwern.net/Ads

Re: Why Lichess will always be free

#64

Post by Lvl999Noob »

op03 wrote: post #44
ZephyrBlu wrote: post #32

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This is basically saying that "build it and they will come" works, but we know that's a fallacy.

Wikipedia, Linux, Blender, Firefox are all what?

This might be survivorship bias talking. I do not have any examples with me but I am quite sure, there are a lot more projects that ended up dead.

Re: Why Lichess will always be free

#65

Post by ZephyrBlu »

acjacobson wrote: post #57
ZephyrBlu wrote: post #54

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I think the founder should have "fuck you" money, not just a reasonable salary.

I would argue he already does. The entire point of "fuck you" money is that you are no longer beholden to someone else - it is not so much defined by the overall amount, but by the freedom it can buy you. He gets to work on what he loves doing every day doing it exactly the way he wants.

My definition of FU money is that you have enough money to be secure no matter what.

I think he would still rely on the month to month or year to year income rather than being completely secure.

Re: Why Lichess will always be free

#67

Post by komali2 »

DivisionSol wrote: post #23
DorianSinDeep wrote: post #14

Earlier quoted context omitted.

While its good that you're willing to compromise in a reasonable manner, I don't think it has particular relevance to the point that advertisements in any form are most likely to be about something you won't go looking for yourself. There are even some companies with no advertisement spending because their product is so essentially useful that people will seek it out themselves.

Some advertisements are malicious attacks on your attention to build brand recognition and entice you to buy things you don't need. However, I think advertising in itself isn't inherently evil. If a chess website served non-tracking, static (no-JS) banner ads about relevant products (maybe, specifically, chess products?) to offset costs, I don't see anything wrong with it. Of course the question is: "what is a releva…

Sure but they wouldn't do that, as it doesn't seem to be something that would further their stated goal:

> to promote and encourage the teaching and practice of the game of chess and its variants".

Re: Why Lichess will always be free

#68

Post by user48a »

kissgyorgy wrote: post #31

Sure this is a very nice cause, but if you don't have proper revenue, you can't pay UX designers to make something more people could use. Explains why Lichess is straight up ugly and the interface is just messy.

I don't think it is fair to claim that "Lichess is straight up ugly and the interface is just messy" in such absolute terms. While this might be your opinion, I for one like their design a lot and think it's very clean!! (and prefer it to alternative chess websites)...

Re: Why Lichess will always be free

#69

Post by indigochill »

pull_my_finger wrote: post #6

> There is absolutely nothing positive about advertisements on websites from the perspective of their users. They eat up valuable screen space and bandwidth for something that nobody wants to see. They often manipulate and misinform. They have even been the source of security vulnerabilities many times in the past. While I share the loathing of modern Ads as a service or whatever the technical name for giving Google/…

From the outside, I like what ReadTheDocs does with Ethical Ads. Because ReadTheDocs's scope is largely limited to technical users, they can deliver "targeted marketing" where they're delivering ads based on the content of their pages rather than user tracking. Also the ads I remember seeing didn't feature attention-grabbing images, just a solid background, the advertiser's logo, and some text about what they're selling. It meshed a lot better with the page content than most ads do.

Re: Why Lichess will always be free

#70

Post by ZephyrBlu »

hobofan wrote: post #55
ZephyrBlu wrote: post #54

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I think the founder should have "fuck you" money, not just a reasonable salary.

Well it seems like the founder doesn't want more money. Not everyone needs or wants "fuck you" money, and with that kind of salary you can afford a decent life in (most of) France.

This is assuming that this stream of income doesn't ever dry up.

I personally think that the founder should have enough money to never worry about money, or at least have a big buffer.

If at some point in the future for whatever reason Lichess gets less donations, he could be screwed.

On the other hand if he had a bit of a warchest he either has runway to increase revenue or to find another source of income.

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