Nothing different than Flappy Bird honestly. Cash out on minimum effort and everyone will forget eventually.
On Wordle, the NYT, and Antitrust
11–20 of 64 posts
Re: On Wordle, the NYT, and Antitrust
#12Many lament the downfall of traditional media then crucify them when they creatively explore new opportunities for themselves.
Should the "Gray Lady" have just stubbornly continued to print its papers until it was bought up by the same PE vipers who have destroyed countless other newspaper companies?
I applaud them for establishing other opportunities for themselves to survive and thrive. IMHO, the NY Times is not the enemy here.
Re: On Wordle, the NYT, and Antitrust
#13Definitely thought it was ironic the NYT bought a “competitor” after constantly complaining about big tech doing it over the years.
They never get called out on it because the overwhelmingly liberal media all read it (don't downvote me, you know this to be unequivocally true). It's as simple as that. Everything has fucking turned political.
What additional insight is created by beating this strawman "liberal", beyond just straightforwardly saying that the media is biased towards its own entrenched power which is intrinsically true and relevant to the topic at hand?
Re: On Wordle, the NYT, and Antitrust
#14Casting Wordle as a NYT competitor squashed by acquisition is pretty stupid.
Wordle hadn't even been turned into an on-going business, and Wardle apparently had no interest in doing so. There wasn't even a squint-and-imagine-the-future potential competitor here, even just considering NYTs game business.
Yes, at some point you're going to have to pay for Wordle, through a subscription and/or viewing ads or make do with a crappy knockoff. Like everything else. This isn't anyone's first day on the internet, is it? If so, sorry to break it to you.
Re: On Wordle, the NYT, and Antitrust
#15Definitely thought it was ironic the NYT bought a “competitor” after constantly complaining about big tech doing it over the years.
> Definitely thought it was ironic the NYT bought a “competitor” after constantly complaining about big tech doing it over the years.
You shouldn't conflate the New York Times Company with the people who write articles for the New York Times (or even its editorial board). They're not the same entity. Apologies if somehow that's not actually what you're doing, but my experience is when someone talks about the "NYT complaining" they're pretty much always talking about a general impression of its opinion pages.
Re: On Wordle, the NYT, and Antitrust
#16Joke's on the NYT: anybody can put up a Wordle work-alike. And will, the moment NYT puts it behind a paywall.
Re: On Wordle, the NYT, and Antitrust
#17Casting Wordle as a NYT competitor squashed by acquisition is pretty stupid. Wordle hadn't even been turned into an on-going business, and Wardle apparently had no interest in doing so. There wasn't even a squint-and-imagine-the-future potential competitor here, even just considering NYTs game business. Yes, at some point you're going to have to pay for Wordle, through a subscription and/or viewing ads or make do wit…
I think that's part of the author's point. These acquisitions happen early enough that it's not clear whether or not Instagram, Wordle, etc. would be competitive businesses.
However, I don't want to work in a regulatory environment that says I can't sell my small business to some larger company on the off chance it might some day be significant on its own.
Re: On Wordle, the NYT, and Antitrust
#18Joke's on the NYT: anybody can put up a Wordle work-alike. And will, the moment NYT puts it behind a paywall.
You think the NYT spent seven figures without knowing this? they’re paying for the name
Re: On Wordle, the NYT, and Antitrust
#19People are missing the point - NYT paid to have THE wordle of the day - talking to other people about your specific battle with that day's word was 99 percent of the fun.
The act of whipping up a quick clone, while a a balm to the ego and a fun exercise for junior devs, does not recreate the social phenomenon.
Re: On Wordle, the NYT, and Antitrust
#20I'm not super happy NYT bought Wordle but I wouldn't go so far as saying that Wordle might "threaten the NYT crossword puzzle", I don't think something like Wordle requires the kind of highly visible editing the NYT crossword does. I think they just saw a good opportunity to get a bunch of new subscribers. Which is kind of weird because Wordle is super easy to reproduce, evidently.
I think the NYT just wanted the name. They could build a clone if they wanted.
Given the thing of value is the amount of people hitting the website, you'd want to leverage that to promote whatever you want to promote, locking it behind a paywall would instantly kill the visitors and more than likely everyone would just scatter and go find a clone (or move on to something else)