8 ms·
On Wordle, the NYT, and Antitrust
- zeroonetwothree 5y agoDefinitely thought it was ironic the NYT bought a “competitor” after constantly complaining about big tech doing it over the years.
- cwxm 5y agonot to mention their dual class stock structure.
- JohnWhigham 5y agoThey 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.
- mindslight 5y agoWhat 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?
- tablespoon 5y ago> 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.
- zeroonetwothree 5y agoSocial media gets constantly criticized for views expressed by individuals on their platforms (often by NYT or other media!). Why shouldn't we be able to do the same to traditional media companies?
- pseudalopex 5y agoThey didn't say you can't criticize. They explained why it wouldn't be ironic even if the comparison made sense. Editorial independence is expected.
- dantheman 5y agoDon't complain about what others do, when thats how you get paid. Get your house in order first.
- tablespoon 5y ago> Don't complain about what others do, when thats how you get paid. Get your house in order first. Are you saying the people who write articles for the New York Times should muzzle themselves in many topic areas, so as to not be seen as being critical of anything the corporation they work may do?
- DerekL 5y agoThe NYT Crossword isn't dominant in its industry, unless you define their industry to be ridiculously small. I'd say their industry is video games, or maybe just puzzle video games. For instance, this article, https://whatsnewinpublishing.com/400000-people-now-subscribe-to-nyts-digital-crossword/ https://whatsnewinpublishing.com/400000-people-now-subscribe..., says that they had 400,000 digital subscribers in 2019. That's at most $33M/year, plus they also get some ad revenue. But Candy Crush Saga made $1.2B in 2021. The NYT Crossword is also available in the newspaper and books, but this probably doesn't earn that much more than the electronic version.
- zwieback 5y agoI'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.
- xeromal 5y agoI think the NYT just wanted the name. They could build a clone if they wanted.
- bydo 5y agoPaying 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-thats-a-good-thing https://kottke.org/22/02/wordle-sold-to-the-ny-times-and-tha...
- omnicognate 5y agoQuoted 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 horseshit. Wordle requires nothing more than static hosting for a single small page. Maintenance costs (and effort) are literally zero.
- margalabargala 5y agoYou 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.
- gringoDan 5y agoThe 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 https://www.thediff.co/p/the-nyt-dead-trees-and-disruption (paywall)
- bigmattystyles 5y agoIt 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 them in my mind - maybe it's because of how Wirecutter came up and the fact they have a deals page. Ultimately though it doesn't matter. I'll never subscribe to any NYT service again until they make it easy to cancel. Talk about dark pattern... yeesh.
- joegahona 5y agoWirecutter has a pretty generous paywall -- I think 10 articles.
- one_off_comment 5y agoI 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.
- ChrisLTD 5y ago> 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.
- omnicognate 5y agoI 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.
- imgabe 5y agoHe 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.
- omnicognate 5y agoAs I said I don't blame him in the slightest for selling it. Did I give the impression I did? I'm counteracting two claims I see repeated a lot on this: 1. That he wouldn't have written it without the expectation of being paid. He did in fact do so, so that's obviously nonsense. 2. That without the NYT buying it it wouldn't have survived. It would, even if the original dev no longer wanted to be involved. Any number of people would gladly host it.
- throwaway889900 5y agoNothing different than Flappy Bird honestly. Cash out on minimum effort and everyone will forget eventually.
- originalvichy 5y agoThe worst case of this I’ve seen was the iOS game Threes. Cool and original idea (to me) on a puzzle game. Even had an art style that was carefully crafted and audio lines from the game devs friends. It started gaining steam among puzzle fans. I think it cost 3-4€ as a one time purchase in the app store. What happened next? Someone released a free version called 2048 that ripped off the idea, made the number 3 based puzzle use the number 2, made the game less challenging and might have even made it use ads at the bottom of the screen. Because Wordle was already free there wasn’t a chance for this kind of douchebag move. NYT as an established brand would face criticism if they cloned the game based on its current popularity (the idea for worlde apparently is not original). NYT did this by the book in my opinion. I think the writer ks just connecting the two for easy points.
- adam 5y agoMany 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.
- jmull 5y agoCasting 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.
- ChrisLTD 5y agoI 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.
- paulryanrogers 5y agoPerhaps 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.
- jmull 5y agoBy the way, the NYT is big, but not that big… ~$2B yearly revenue.
- lotsofpulp 5y agoWhat is the size of a company? Net income? Market cap? Number of employees?
- PaulDavisThe1st 5y agoIt's almost certainly not about the absolute size of the company, but its relative position in whatever niche(s) it operates in.
- ncmncm 5y agoJoke's on the NYT: anybody can put up a Wordle work-alike. And will, the moment NYT puts it behind a paywall.
- micromacrofoot 5y agoYou think the NYT spent seven figures without knowing this? they’re paying for the name
- Splendor 5y agoThere 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?
- imgabe 5y agoSudoku 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.
- kzrdude 5y agoThere are lots of copies already
- fleddr 5y agoWordle is the copy. It's Lingo.
- quxpar 5y agoPeople 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.
- dTal 5y agoI note that all future Wordle words are already known, so it would be trivial to make a "compatible" Wordle.
- omnicognate 5y agoTrivial and, presumably, illegal.
- zeroonetwothree 5y agoHow could it possibly be illegal? There is no IP protection for Date % words.length
- pseudalopex 5y agoCopyright. Wardle and his partner chose the words.
- omnicognate 5y agoThat's what I'd expect, copyright on the word list. However, IANAL and I would love to see some proper analysis on the legal status of clones, especially identical ones with the same word list. You can have a perfect clone of wordle running in a couple of minutes, but I'm certain that would be copyright infringement.
- heckerhut 5y agoThere is a copyright on databases for exactly that reason.
- deleted 5y ago[deleted]
- ppljudge 5y agoI always remember that article where people said the new companies and ideas wouldn’t come from garages anymore. Looks like a single HTML game is a huge success now
- JohnHaugeland 5y agowordle is a game that can be cloned in 20 minutes, and frequently is worrying about that as an anti-trust issue is beyond the pale
- Apocryphon 5y agoMeanwhile, Microsoft buys up all of Activision-Blizzard and Sony buys Bungie and no one blinks an eye. No one even noticed that Zynga just got bought by Take-Two within the past month!
- stjohnswarts 5y agoI bet the Wordle author is wiping his tears with hundred dollar bills over the viciousnous of capitalism.
- madarco 5y agoNo, NYT bought the NFT of Wordle
- marstall 5y agoThey're not paying for wordle, the game - obviously that's been cloned a million times over (and it's a clone itself). They're paying for the viral social network around Wordle. My family has a group chat where we brag about our Wordle results and discuss our strategies every single day. It's a nice way to connect with my adult siblings. I can only imagine how many other groups like ours exist. Wouldn't the NYT like to capture that kind of energy within their Games offering, within all their offerings? It will take finesse for the NYT to land that energy as a profit-making service that drives growth, but that's a challenge they've got to take on, and if anyone in the news industry can do it, it's them. Great investment at a fire-sale price. Viral concepts like this are 1 in a million.
- culpable_pickle 5y agoCan you link the original that wordle cloned?
- marstall 5y agoI can't find the article I first read about this in but the Wordle wikipedia page mentions a couple of antecedents with near-identical gameplay, including a TV game show called Lingo ... https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wordle https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wordle