[deleted]
On Wordle, the NYT, and Antitrust
31–40 of 64 posts
Re: On Wordle, the NYT, and Antitrust
#32Joke's on the NYT: anybody can put up a Wordle work-alike. And will, the moment NYT puts it behind a paywall.
There are lots of copies already
Re: On Wordle, the NYT, and Antitrust
#33> As a society, we want to properly incent smart people to build useful things. The author of the piece needs to help bridge us from his proposal to "re-examine the way we make rules around tech M&A", and how Mr. Wardle would have been compensated for his work.
I don't blame him in the slightest for taking the money - I would have too - but Mr. Wardle didn't need to be compensated for his "work". He wrote it as a (beautifully crafted) bit of fun, with no desire for or expectation of payment. You couldn't wish for a clearer demonstration of the fallacy of assuming nobody will create anything unless they're "incentivised" to do so.
It wasn't work, it was play.
Re: On Wordle, the NYT, and Antitrust
#34People 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.
I note that all future Wordle words are already known, so it would be trivial to make a "compatible" Wordle.
Trivial and, presumably, illegal.
Re: On Wordle, the NYT, and Antitrust
#35Earlier quoted context omitted.
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...
Quoted in that article: > 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 hor…
You cut the quote too early and fully changed the author's meaning.
The author isn't talking about the financial costs of running the site. As you noted, those are near zero.
The "cost" referred to is the emotional/psychological one of suddenly being responsible for something that millions of people feel very passionate about. That's a non-zero cost for many people, and not a cost that everyone may want to take on.
Re: On Wordle, the NYT, and Antitrust
#36Earlier 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?
Also, NYTimes could have cloned Wordle without paying Wardle, and that probably would have been worse for everyone involved.
Re: On Wordle, the NYT, and Antitrust
#37> As a society, we want to properly incent smart people to build useful things. The author of the piece needs to help bridge us from his proposal to "re-examine the way we make rules around tech M&A", and how Mr. Wardle would have been compensated for his work.
I don't blame him in the slightest for taking the money - I would have too - but Mr. Wardle didn't need to be compensated for his "work". He wrote it as a (beautifully crafted) bit of fun, with no desire for or expectation of payment. You couldn't wish for a clearer demonstration of the fallacy of assuming nobody will create anything unless they're "incentivised" to do so. It wasn't work, it was play.
He wrote it for one person. He didn’t ask to be the focus of millions of people’s attention. Even if that attention is mostly positive that is a lot to deal with just in the sheer volume of messages, let alone the possibility of unhinged people thinking he wants to marry them or that he’s sending them coded messages in Wordle or whatever.
Even if it's simple to host with that much traffic it's bound to be a headache. Forget to renew your SSL certificate and the site is inaccessible for 5 minutes? Great, now you've got 10,000 angry emails in your inbox.
I don’t blame him for wanting to get out of the spotlight and let someone else take the responsibility. Creating it may have been play, but keeping it going and dealing with the expectations of a huge fanbase is definitely work.
Re: On Wordle, the NYT, and Antitrust
#38Re: On Wordle, the NYT, and Antitrust
#39People 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.
Exactly. They paid a million bucks for the free marketing and built in audience. They're buying the audience.
Re: On Wordle, the NYT, and Antitrust
#40Joke's on the NYT: anybody can put up a Wordle work-alike. And will, the moment NYT puts it behind a paywall.
There are lots of places to play sudoku and crosswords for free too. Yet people are happy to pay the NYT for those games. Why wouldn't the same be true of this game?
Sudoku is pretty generic, but crosswords have an element of authorship that is important. Writing a good crossword puzzle takes talent and skill and the people making crosswords for the NY Times are going to be better than most people probably.