On Wordle, the NYT, and Antitrust
semiotech.substack.com
On Wordle, the NYT, and Antitrust
1–10 of 64 posts
Re: On Wordle, the NYT, and Antitrust
#2Definitely thought it was ironic the NYT bought a “competitor” after constantly complaining about big tech doing it over the years.
Re: On Wordle, the NYT, and Antitrust
#3Definitely thought it was ironic the NYT bought a “competitor” after constantly complaining about big tech doing it over the years.
not to mention their dual class stock structure.
Re: On Wordle, the NYT, and Antitrust
#4I'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.
Re: On Wordle, the NYT, and Antitrust
#5I'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.
Re: On Wordle, the NYT, and Antitrust
#6The 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 constitutes bullying from an established, profitable unicorn with over $1bn in annual recurring revenue."
https://www.thediff.co/p/the-nyt-dead-trees-and-disruption (paywall)
Re: On Wordle, the NYT, and Antitrust
#7I agree with the spirit of this piece, but I think Wordle is a weird choice to try to highlight the point. I enjoy Wordle, but I'm certainly not going to die without it. Not to downplay Wardle, but, as xeromal pointed out, it's pretty easy to crank out a clone. Lots of people already have. If NYT paywalls it, I'll either stop playing or find or create a clone.
Re: On Wordle, the NYT, and Antitrust
#8Definitely 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.
Re: On Wordle, the NYT, and Antitrust
#9> 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.
Re: On Wordle, the NYT, and Antitrust
#10I'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.
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...