Hacker News Board Hacker News, browsed like a classic message board
Live data from Hacker News

Why Lichess will always be free

lichess.org

Post reply on HN
Print view View original

441–450 of 477 posts

Re: Why Lichess will always be free

#441

Post by disgruntledphd2 »

MauranKilom wrote: post #283
cbg0 wrote: post #240

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Are those 1:1 comparisons? I know typically in the US salaries advertised are not exactly take-home pay, but before tax amounts, and is some places in Europe salaries are advertised as take-home pay.

Well it'll never be 1:1 due to differences in health care etc., of course, but those were all before tax from what I understood. Not sure how companies advertising take-home pay would work when your tax rate depends on e.g. marital status (at least in Germany it could be off by maybe a factor of 2 in both directions), which country/region are you thinking of there?

The salaries in London for FAANG are equivalent to about 60-70% of those in the US. The stock grants are typically smaller, also, though this is less true for software engineers.

The one I used to work for had a real problem of developers leaving for the US on an internal transfer after 12 months, precisely because of the salaries.

Re: Why Lichess will always be free

#442

Post by aloisdg »

greyman wrote: post #164

I like lichess, it is my first go to website to play chess, but for-profit models also have their advantages. For example in chess.com, they pay grandmasters to be there, and one can learn a lot from grandmasters. They earn money, and invest them back so the site can be even better. So I think neither model is wrong, or inherently better than the other.

When you have to pay someone to play on your platform because they prefer to play on another one.

Re: Why Lichess will always be free

#443

Post by bluedino »

phoinix wrote: post #256
eloisant wrote: post #236

Thibault Duplessis is actually an ex co-worker of mine, and this guy is truly impressive. Not only he is a very talented developer, he really sticks to his beliefs and made what Lichess is today. He used to take up a job for a year or so, save money, and travel the world for a year or so until money runs out. Then he would come back to France and take up a new job. All working on Lichess during his free time. For a f…

He may as well be a millionaire in the future. By having a platform that people use you do get a minimal amount of bug fixing and stability of the platform. Lichess is a platform for companies to use it for their purposes with some tweaks here and there it can be an education platform, a platform for engineers to practice the internals of machines and many more possibilities. Joomla is open source and their devs make…

Joomla. Have not heard that name in a very long time.

Re: Why Lichess will always be free

#446

Post by yesenadam »

V-2 wrote: post #195
sireat wrote: post #116

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 thou…

"(chessbase.com, ICC, FICS are lesser alternatives now)" I'd say that the main competitor of the two is now Chess24. It follows the subscription/premium model, taking it even further than Chess.com. Eg. the latter doesn't require you to be a paid user just to export a pgn of your own game - but Chess24 does.

Chess24 also has I think by far the best output of free chess videos on youtube.[0] My two favourite chess channels are chess24 and chess24 en español. e.g. I'm about to watch the Candidates tournament right now on there, with Judit Polgar commentating and live video. The first few days had Magnus Carlsen (!) commentating.

chess24 https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCkTCNuQ2mGfW6-SpHpaze_g/vid...

en español https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCTzRQxC3i7GOT4jtiTq4e0w/vid... (Divis, el Fo, Niño Anton etc)

For years I played online a lot, but I gave up playing (it's too easy to play all night!) and just watch tournaments. Also banter blitz, on the chess24 channels, with e.g. Dubov, Grischuk, So, Radjabov, Karjakin, Nepo etc etc, not to mention Magnus, is amazing—hearing first-hand how the strongest players think. It's not always fun playing chess, but it's always a lot of fun watching! Every second.

[0] St Louis youtube channel, except for major tournaments, which they do very well, is super-lame compared to years ago when Yasser, Ben Finegold etc were regularly doing video lectures.

Re: Why Lichess will always be free

#447

Post by Yajirobe »

iSnow wrote: post #132
matsemann wrote: post #30

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I feel like the developer/founder should have a higher salary. $58k a year for running a site with millions of games per day.. deserves more. Is it because they don't get enough donations? Or saving the extra money for growth/buffer? (edit: originally posted this as a top level comment but felt it fit better here) Edit2: just checked. I've spent 11 whole days playing chess there (and not sure if that only counts game…

Gross avg. wage in France is $42700[1] if calculated with 12 months and no variable benefits. Mean would be more interesting, but I don't seem to easily find it. It might sound weirdly low for someone in IT in the USA, but first, not everyone commands FAANG sales, and second, wages in the EU are comparatively low. With some seniority, you can rise to $100k relatively easily, but you have to sell your soul to either s…

Someone of his caliber could easily work remotely and earn 200k+ a year

Re: Why Lichess will always be free

#448

Post by sealeck »

boatsie wrote: post #340

I love the sentiment but you often see these promises broken, so I won’t hold my breath. Imagine someone offers him a billion dollars for the site. Do you really believe he would refuse and hold to these promises? Would you?

(a) capitalism means that people are unlikely to offer him $1 billion for the product

(b) doesn't this assumes that having $1 billion is much more valuable than being an instrumental part of an online community which brings so much happiness to so many people

(c) wealth has diminishing returns (in terms of material circumstances) and the person who runs this doesn't seem to be after power

Re: Why Lichess will always be free

#449

Post by middleclasswhat »

LordDragonfang wrote: post #429
hellbannedguy wrote: post #420

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I do agree, but most people want a lot of money. They might say they just want some protein in their noodles, but deep down they are a Zuck. It seems like every financially successful developer out there came from a middle/upper class enviornment. Once they smell money, it's always more, more, and more. If the get big enough they blame it on their shareholders? Guys like Thibault are a different breed. They are rare.…

>It seems like every financially successful developer out there came from a middle/upper class enviornment. I think this is more likely evidence of how many advantages being brought up in those environments gives in becoming financially successful. Not having to worry about paying for college, for example, leading to having more seed funding to be able to start working on your own projects, and potentially even havin…

Where do you live that the middle class doesn't have to worry about paying for college? I grew up somewhere between working and middle class and by the time I got accepted into a state school my folks had earned just enough money to report to FAFSA that I didn't need aid -- but they had no significant savings with which to send me. Despite my father being a traditional engineer my whole life, and my mother had a career in social work.

I worked to pay for my tuition, and like many millennials, discovered this was insufficient, and had to take out loans. Eventually the financial exposure was too great so I dropped out because I couldn't afford it anymore and found a job writing code

And now I'm middle class, myself.

But I'm middle class for flyover country. If you don't have to worry about paying for college, because your parents can afford it out of pocket, I've got news for you: you're not middle class. You're RICH.

Re: Why Lichess will always be free

#450

Post by cableshaft »

S4M wrote: post #258
philshem wrote: post #167

The world needs Libackgammon!

You can make it! There is already lishogi.org for shogi (Japanese chess) and lidraughts.org for draughts. They took the code for lichess and tweaked it for their respective games.

Thank you for pointing out this out and making it click in my head that what they're doing could be done for other games.

I've got one or two game designs of my own that I could probably make something like this with, but it didn't really click I could use this code as a reference until then.

Post reply on HN