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Why Lichess will always be free

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Re: Why Lichess will always be free

#111

Post by vishnugupta »

Stratoscope wrote: post #101
zimbatm wrote: post #61

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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 coll…

> Ads are an attack on our attention. That may well be true, but let me tell you a story. I recently got into binge watching some old TV shows I enjoyed as a kid, like What's My Line and a few others. But most of the YouTube copies have the commercials stripped out! The few videos that have the old commercials are a blast. The Remington Rand Univac Electronic Brain. The Remington Rand Shaver! And as we all know, 9 ou…

I too look back at old ads with fondness and reminisce about the simple times of late 80s and early 90s. However when I recollect how I felt at that time about those ads it's no different from today.

The fondness that I associate with those ads are because they are a window to a world that was simpler and in someways beautiful. Do I miss those times? Somewhat. Do I want those days back? Probably not, because for me (and my generation) the progress has been stupendous.

Re: Why Lichess will always be free

#112

Post by maccard »

DorianSinDeep wrote: post #14
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/…

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.

> There are even some companies with no advertisement spending because their product is so essentially useful that people will seek it out themselves

Really? I'd love to hear more about this.

Re: Why Lichess will always be free

#113

Post by mproud »

Always good to see. (I’m tired of seeing ads everywhere too!) Bravo.

Though, I disagree on the restaurant analogy. Not being open-source isn’t the lack of willingness to share the ingredients. It’s choosing not to share the recipe, which is almost every restaurant.

Re: Why Lichess will always be free

#114

Post by inferense »

This is a bummer. As much as I love lichess, I think there's a beautiful array of opportunities of monetisation which I believe would be nothing short of wrong incentives. Value-based monetisation (instead of restriction / ad based monetisation) might as well motivate the team to maximise that value for the user.

Just a couple of examples (for which I'd be actually willing to pay for)

1. Stockfish, server-side game analysis, learning from mistakes 2. Deep individual analysis based on XY games, practicing on weak spots, openings etc. with stockfish 3. Their practice library

Again, all of these are super valuable to those who want to take their game to the next level, don't see why anyone in that segment wouldn't pay for this. The "entertainment" feature of lichess which is the chess itself should be free indeed.

Re: Why Lichess will always be free

#115

Post by agustif »

matsemann wrote: post #102
indigochill wrote: post #86

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>I feel like the developer/founder should have a higher salary. This is probably the root of most of tech's angst: people thinking they're entitled to get rich just because they made /run something. If you can live comfortably doing something as rewarding as making something like Lichess, what more can you really want? People are talking about FU money/financial independence, which I agree is nice, but you can totall…

I'm not talking about entitlement. But this guy is really good at multiple things. SRE, frontend, backend, project management etc. He could probably earn twice as much working a normal job, and even more for the right company. He don't want to. And maybe don't want/need to earn more. And that is completely fine. But his impact is huuuge. I'd wish more people did like him. But I don't think many will, because those sk…

If he keeps 100% of ownership, that 58k can become 500k in a few years?

Re: Why Lichess will always be free

#116

Post by sireat »

I love Lichess (13k+ games and counting).

It is a worthy alternative to chess.com model . There should be room for both.(chessbase.com, ICC, FICS are lesser alternatives now)

That said this low pressure model only works when you are a lean shop(single developer proficient in Scala) AND have millions of users.

Running a lean shop might be an admirable goal but millions of users is not for every project.

There are thousands of worthy open source projects which struggle to give their creator sustenance through donations.

The exceptions are few(Vue comes to mind).

Re: Why Lichess will always be free

#117

Post by hinkley »

JohnJamesRambo wrote: post #95
hinkley wrote: post #53

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I’m sorry a free website is blowing smoke up my ass about future plans. I’ve been hearing this same promise for longer than many Hackernews reader have been alive. It does not get easier to hear it with each retelling. There are more than two states available here. An excellent time to announce always free is when you set up the trust. An excellent time to announce the intention to be free is when asking for advice o…

I don’t know what to say. I think you are extremely zoomed in here on a free chess website haha.

Entirely possible. I mentioned somewhere else in all of this grey text that I’ve been hearing this exact story for 25 years now and it doesn’t seem to get any easier to hear it from a new mouth.

Everybody says they’re going to do their new favorite thing forever and everybody either gets distracted, gets a new new favorite thing, or worst, gets shit on by life and has to backpedal. Just... Roll that good energy into literally anything else. Please.

Re: Why Lichess will always be free

#118

Post by lazyweb »

Stratoscope wrote: post #101
zimbatm wrote: post #61

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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 coll…

> Ads are an attack on our attention. That may well be true, but let me tell you a story. I recently got into binge watching some old TV shows I enjoyed as a kid, like What's My Line and a few others. But most of the YouTube copies have the commercials stripped out! The few videos that have the old commercials are a blast. The Remington Rand Univac Electronic Brain. The Remington Rand Shaver! And as we all know, 9 ou…

That sounds to me like you're having an emotional / nostalgic response to things you were exposed to during your youth. And there is some kind of novelty to watching older commercials, no doubt. But IMO that wears of quickly. What's left is capitalistic propaganda often riddled with sexism, misogynism, homophobia etc. which to me is the real cultural significance. Not exactly sure what changed though, wether companies discovered it's more profitable to put on an act of some kind of progressive consumerism, or if it's an actual response to an evolving society.

Re: Why Lichess will always be free

#119

Post by thomasahle »

inferense wrote: post #114

This is a bummer. As much as I love lichess, I think there's a beautiful array of opportunities of monetisation which I believe would be nothing short of wrong incentives. Value-based monetisation (instead of restriction / ad based monetisation) might as well motivate the team to maximise that value for the user. Just a couple of examples (for which I'd be actually willing to pay for) 1. Stockfish, server-side game a…

> 1. Stockfish, server-side game analysis, learning from mistakes

I'm not sure what you mean by 2 and 3, but lichess already has server side analysis.

If it's just that you'd like to pay for it, you can set up donations. You can also contribute your own server to the analysis cluster.

Lichess is a really inspiring project on how a free/open source software community can provide the same value based features that we normally assume can only be done by monetization.

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