21–30 of 64 posts
Joke's on the NYT: anybody can put up a Wordle work-alike. And will, the moment NYT puts it behind a paywall.
Casting 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.
The NYT's main competitors aren't other newspapers. Their competitors are Substack, Candy Crush, and Netflix. As Byrne Hobart points out, > "in their latest quarter almost 30% of their new digital subscriptions were for games, cooking, and Wirecutter, rather than news." And a bit more cheekily: > "When there's a negative New York Times article about a startup, one of the not-uncommon Tech Twitter jokes is that this c…
Casting 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.
The idea of forestalling competition by buying non-competitors doesn’t make any sense at all. NYT would have to buy all kinds of things, spending orders of magnitudes more money than they have.
I have a non-business game… is there any question why the NYT isn’t offerings me low-seven figures for it?
Casting 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.
*Do people still know that this is a lot of money, and that most companies are not able to raise this much capital?
Earlier quoted context omitted.
I think the NYT just wanted the name. They could build a clone if they wanted.
Paying the creator was also the classy thing to do. Spending "low seven figures" is not a big deal for the NYT financially, but it's a significant token of goodwill (well, to everyone other than the author of this article). I prefer Kottke's take: https://kottke.org/22/02/wordle-sold-to-the-ny-times-and-tha...
> Creator of Wordle: I can’t keep running this thing; I love the NYT puzzle peeps, they inspired me to make this thing you love, so I sold it to them! Twitter: How dare you give this thing we love a sustaining home!
> Honestly, people. The choice isn’t between Wordle as it exists today and NYT Wordle. It is between no Wordle and NYT Wordle, or even worse, a much crummier acquirer.
Absolute horseshit. Wordle requires nothing more than static hosting for a single small page. Maintenance costs (and effort) are literally zero.
People 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.
The NYT's main competitors aren't other newspapers. Their competitors are Substack, Candy Crush, and Netflix. As Byrne Hobart points out, > "in their latest quarter almost 30% of their new digital subscriptions were for games, cooking, and Wirecutter, rather than news." And a bit more cheekily: > "When there's a negative New York Times article about a startup, one of the not-uncommon Tech Twitter jokes is that this c…
It still blows my mind that you have to pay for Wirecutter nowadays. They ultimately end their articles with an affiliate link to their recommendation. I guess perhaps requiring a paid subscription quells any question of incentives, as in they're in it for the subscription money rather than the affiliate links. Still, it's odd, you could say the same thing about Consumer Reports but for some reason, I don't equate th…
Earlier quoted context omitted.
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.
Yeah that’s the author’s argument. That’s why I called it stupid. The idea of forestalling competition by buying non-competitors doesn’t make any sense at all. NYT would have to buy all kinds of things, spending orders of magnitudes more money than they have. I have a non-business game… is there any question why the NYT isn’t offerings me low-seven figures for it?
Earlier quoted context omitted.
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.
Perhaps there is a company size which is just too big to make acquisitions because the risk of stifling competition is too great. Or make any purchases of companies in markets that don't have enough competition.