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Chess is booming and our servers are struggling

chess.com

61–70 of 132 posts

Re: Chess is booming and our servers are struggling

#61
post #44
post #18

Chess.com has the somewhat unique property of being a chess server run by people who aren't good at chess and aren't good at technology. I think they used to hire devs off Fiverr. However they are somewhat good at business as they've convinced thousands of people to pay $17.00 per month for something that can be found for free at Lichess.org. They do pay a ton of money to streamers to use their site exclusively, whic…

“run by people who aren’t good at Chess” - what an odd statement to make.

Especially since the main spokesperson for the website is an IM

Re: Chess is booming and our servers are struggling

#62
post #53

I was going to post that I suspected this was due to some sort of automated or bot activity... a couple months seems like way too short a time for that much organic growth. However, Google Trends also indicates a doubling of interest in chess as a search term over the past three months. Interesting!

likely due to queens gambit (netflix show) and shotgun king having some influence for both being viral hits

Re: Chess is booming and our servers are struggling

#63
post #18

Chess.com has the somewhat unique property of being a chess server run by people who aren't good at chess and aren't good at technology. I think they used to hire devs off Fiverr. However they are somewhat good at business as they've convinced thousands of people to pay $17.00 per month for something that can be found for free at Lichess.org. They do pay a ton of money to streamers to use their site exclusively, whic…

I'll admit it, I subscribe to chess.com. I pay $31 / year.

I mainly joined for the unlimited post-game analysis and puzzles. I also like the app, it's fast and intuitive. Lichess is great too, nothing against them.

Re: Chess is booming and our servers are struggling

#64
post #58

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I'm curious, as someone who appreciates the simple and intuitive Lichess UI, what makes the Chess.com UI better than Lichess'?

Yeah, I am with you on this. It isn't even the case that Lichess UI is simple because it lacks advanced features, it just straight up feels more intuitive and way more pleasant to interact with. Chess.com UI reminds me of overcluttered websites from late 2000s/early 2010s. Pure anecdata, but I only know one person irl who prefers chess.com, and I never managed to get a straight answer from him as to why, other than "…

Could easily go into a very long list of reasons as a long-time app/UX developer, but playing against the computer is a good starting point: on Chess.com as a beginner I was immediately able to play against a wide variety of AI's, each is given to you by their ELO strength, and they are tuned to have different personalities so you can practice against the different types. This is so much better than Lichess where you literally choose "Strength" 1-8 (no idea what that means) and it only then clarifies "Stockfish 14 Level 8"... ok? And after the game, analysis and review interfaces have so many more helpful things for understanding the game, seeing threats, etc. Maybe if I was already very experienced with Chess I'd not mind so much. But this is just one example of many I found as I tested both a couple months ago when I was starting.

On Lichess the puzzles are less well organized and explained, the Lessons interface is arcane and much less polished in terms of content overall though there are gems if you hunt and eventually figure out the UI, and online play is likewise has a lot of small things all over that make a big difference.

Re: Chess is booming and our servers are struggling

#66
post #18

Chess.com has the somewhat unique property of being a chess server run by people who aren't good at chess and aren't good at technology. I think they used to hire devs off Fiverr. However they are somewhat good at business as they've convinced thousands of people to pay $17.00 per month for something that can be found for free at Lichess.org. They do pay a ton of money to streamers to use their site exclusively, whic…

Bad at the game, bad at engineering, but good at marketing. There's a lesson in here. Similar to how most of the software that runs the internet is poorly written and has bad fundamentals.

>but good at marketing

I don't know much about all of this but it seems to me that owning chess.com is 99% of their success if it's not great at the game or great at the engineering aspect.

Re: Chess is booming and our servers are struggling

#67

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The game reviews are really nice to quickly see the key points of the game. Plus the UI all over is better than Lichess. That and network effects explain the rest.

I'm curious, as someone who appreciates the simple and intuitive Lichess UI, what makes the Chess.com UI better than Lichess'?

For one, I vastly prefer how pre moves work on chess.com

Re: Chess is booming and our servers are struggling

#68
post #53

I was going to post that I suspected this was due to some sort of automated or bot activity... a couple months seems like way too short a time for that much organic growth. However, Google Trends also indicates a doubling of interest in chess as a search term over the past three months. Interesting!

likely due to queens gambit (netflix show) and shotgun king having some influence for both being viral hits

Don't forget the cheating scandal and Carlsen declining to defend the WC title. Both made it into the mainstream news which at the very least caused people to search for chess.

Re: Chess is booming and our servers are struggling

#69
post #27

Chess found its way into my YouTube feed and that got me back into it. I wonder if this is just some bizarre case of the outcome of some thing like that. “Oops we accidentally put chess in front of everyone for a week and now they’re all playing it.”

I found that as well. The cheating controversy seemed to have kicked off some interest and then chess started appearing in my YouTube and TikTok feed have started recommending interesting creators. For the first time I've been passively watching content learning chess more formally. One interesting event can kick off feed recommendations and start this fly wheel effect.

The Queens Gambit Netflix show a while back also kicked off a lot of interest.

Re: Chess is booming and our servers are struggling

#70
post #52
post #18

Chess.com has the somewhat unique property of being a chess server run by people who aren't good at chess and aren't good at technology. I think they used to hire devs off Fiverr. However they are somewhat good at business as they've convinced thousands of people to pay $17.00 per month for something that can be found for free at Lichess.org. They do pay a ton of money to streamers to use their site exclusively, whic…

Chess.com strikes me as a domain squatter who decided to try to make something of their site instead of selling it off once it was popular. Kudos to them, but at the end of the day they’re still domain squatters.

They bought the domain in 2005, probably for quite a lot of money.
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