6 ms·

Chess.com has the somewhat unique property of being a chess server run by people who aren't good at chess and aren't good at technology. I think they used to hi

by slm_HN 4y ago

Chess.com has the somewhat unique property of being a chess server run by people who aren't good at chess and aren't good at technology. I think they used to hire devs off Fiverr. However they are somewhat good at business as they've convinced thousands of people to pay $17.00 per month for something that can be found for free at Lichess.org. They do pay a ton of money to streamers to use their site exclusively, which is good for chess since it allows more chess players to make a living.

tester457 4y ago
Bad at the game, bad at engineering, but good at marketing. There's a lesson in here. Similar to how most of the software that runs the internet is poorly written and has bad fundamentals.
- pictur 4y ago
  this is a sad fact of life. a great project in terms of engineering can be beaten by a job that is just a wordpress page but great in terms of marketing.
- dan-robertson 4y ago
  Is the lesson Berkson’s fallacy?
  - janalsncm 4y ago
    Thank you for mentioning this, it’s a very interesting thought actually. For the uninitiated, the idea is that a product needs good engineering + good marketing to be successful. Products with only one of them will fail. The idea of Berkson’s fallacy is that even though it seems that good marketing is negatively correlated with engineering (and vice-versa) it’s actually because the baseline level of engineering and marketing is low, and products which happen to excel in one don’t need to excel in the other.
- randmeerkat 4y ago
  > Bad at the game, bad at engineering, but good at marketing. There's a lesson in here. Similar to how most of the software that runs the internet is poorly written and has bad fundamentals. Maybe now we can get rid of Byzantine tech interview processes and instead just focus on hiring people that are capable of hacking things together.
  - fbdab103 4y ago
    >..focus on hiring people that are capable of hacking things together. Based on my daily frustrations with basically every piece of software, that already appears to be the status quo.
    - randmeerkat 4y ago
      > Based on my daily frustrations with basically every piece of software, that already appears to be the status quo. That’s the kind of elitist thinking that leads to Byzantine tech interviews and poor collaboration.
      - fbdab103 4y ago
        That was more a commentary on hate-the-game not the playa. Lots of smart and talented people in the field, yet software coming out the door routinely has egregious usability and performance defects. Bizarre prioritization of features that are dictated by anything other than end-user needs. Edit: remove the dig at management which is too easy a scapegoat to explain all ills
      - SideQuark 4y ago
        Black and white thinking that leads people to decry "elitist thinking" is exactly a signal of a person I never want to work with, because such un-nuanced understanding of tradeoffs required to work on professional projects is demonstrably beyond their current understanding of things that do exist for good reason. "Hacked together" is the software equivalent of fixing things with duct tape. It sounds cool and fun, and is fun to do for your own playthings, but it is a terrible mentality for developing solid projects.
- nwienert 4y ago
  The game reviews are really nice to quickly see the key points of the game. Plus the UI all over is better than Lichess. That and network effects explain the rest.
  - owlglass 4y ago
    I'm curious, as someone who appreciates the simple and intuitive Lichess UI, what makes the Chess.com UI better than Lichess'?
    - filoleg 4y ago
      Yeah, I am with you on this. It isn't even the case that Lichess UI is simple because it lacks advanced features, it just straight up feels more intuitive and way more pleasant to interact with. Chess.com UI reminds me of overcluttered websites from late 2000s/early 2010s. Pure anecdata, but I only know one person irl who prefers chess.com, and I never managed to get a straight answer from him as to why, other than "i just play there and like it more, maybe i will check out Lichess at some point, idk."
      - nwienert 4y ago
        Could easily go into a very long list of reasons as a long-time app/UX developer, but playing against the computer is a good starting point: on Chess.com as a beginner I was immediately able to play against a wide variety of AI's, each is given to you by their ELO strength, and they are tuned to have different personalities so you can practice against the different types. This is so much better than Lichess where you literally choose "Strength" 1-8 (no idea what that means) and it only then clarifies "Stockfish 14 Level 8"... ok? And after the game, analysis and review interfaces have so many more helpful things for understanding the game, seeing threats, etc. Maybe if I was already very experienced with Chess I'd not mind so much. But this is just one example of many I found as I tested both a couple months ago when I was starting. On Lichess the puzzles are less well organized and explained, the Lessons interface is arcane and much less polished in terms of content overall though there are gems if you hunt and eventually figure out the UI, and online play is likewise has a lot of small things all over that make a big difference.
- sn9 4y ago
  Is it being good at marketing or just having the obvious URL? Or is that the same thing here?
- rr888 4y ago
  Surely the most important fundamental is that it makes money?
- rco8786 4y ago
  The domain name doesn't hurt either. Though I guess you can wrap that up under Marketing.
- eatsyourtacos 4y ago
  >but good at marketing I don't know much about all of this but it seems to me that owning chess.com is 99% of their success if it's not great at the game or great at the engineering aspect.
- wslh 4y ago
  > Similar to how most of the software that runs the internet is poorly written and has bad fundamentals. Microsoft Teams? Good lesson to startups and companies in general.
- schiffern 4y ago
  >There's a lesson in here. "#20. A bad design with a good presentation is doomed eventually. A good design with a bad presentation is doomed immediately." https://spacecraft.ssl.umd.edu/akins_laws.html https://spacecraft.ssl.umd.edu/akins_laws.html
- bsder 4y ago
  Akin's Law of Spacecraft Design Number 20: > 20. A bad design with a good presentation is doomed eventually. A good design with a bad presentation is doomed immediately.
nicky0 4y ago
“run by people who aren’t good at Chess” - what an odd statement to make.
- recov 4y ago
  Especially since the main spokesperson for the website is an IM
certifiedloud 4y ago
Lichess is better in every way except one: their push notifications are unreliable.
ecf 4y ago
Chess.com strikes me as a domain squatter who decided to try to make something of their site instead of selling it off once it was popular. Kudos to them, but at the end of the day they’re still domain squatters.
- lolinder 4y ago
  They bought the domain in 2005, probably for quite a lot of money.
JauntTrooper 4y ago
I'll admit it, I subscribe to chess.com. I pay $31 / year. I mainly joined for the unlimited post-game analysis and puzzles. I also like the app, it's fast and intuitive. Lichess is great too, nothing against them.
Euphorbium 4y ago
For just playing they may be equivalent, but for learning and analysing chess.com is way better.
oldstrangers 4y ago
>run by people who aren't good at chess To be fair, Danny Rensch is a 2402 FIDE rated player. That's better than 99.9% of people on the planet.
- nchie 4y ago
  "People" on the planet? If that's accurate it's not super impressive, considering that probably 95-99% (or more) of people don't take chess very seriously. I used to be the top 99-99.5% of Counter-Strike players (_very_ roughly obviously), and that wasn't very impressive at all even though it's way past top 99.9% of "people on the planet". (that being said,
  - pc86 4y ago
    Ok just to be clear you're saying a 2400 rating isn't impressive? I'm not sure this is a hill worth dying on for the sake of useless pedantry.
  - oldstrangers 4y ago
    You can find whatever semantic qualifier makes it impressive enough for you, but a 2400 FIDE rating is extremely impressive and difficult to achieve.
    - nchie 4y ago
      So I posted this without finishing (probably managed to fat finger it somehow). I meant to say that I thought 2400 meant quite a bit more than 99.9%.
- threatofrain 4y ago
  Most competitive sports & games are much more cruel than chess, but chess is still very cruel. Can you imagine achieving recognition or winning money as the 3000th best Fortnite player? Or the 3000th best League of Legends player? If so, you'd be winning on personality during streaming but certainly not on competitiveness.
marshmallowmad 4y ago
I prefer their analysis over lichess’s and I think they are a lot more feature rich. Also, I think the company in general is pretty good at chess? I’m an 1800 elo player for reference.
1270018080 4y ago
I did not realize lichess was so much better. I just switched. The UI was a little off putting for some reason when I first started getting into chess.
berjin 4y ago
Chess.com is more polished than Lichess. Particularly the puzzles and learning features.
benmmurphy 4y ago
I signed up to a chess.com membership a long time ago because the puzzles were behind a paywall and at the time lichess didn't have a puzzle rush mode. lichess now has similar puzzle modes to chess.com but it wasn't always like this.

by slm_HN 4y ago

tester457 4y ago

Bad at the game, bad at engineering, but good at marketing. There's a lesson in here. Similar to how most of the software that runs the internet is poorly written and has bad fundamentals.

pictur 4y ago
this is a sad fact of life. a great project in terms of engineering can be beaten by a job that is just a wordpress page but great in terms of marketing.
dan-robertson 4y ago
Is the lesson Berkson’s fallacy?
- janalsncm 4y ago
  Thank you for mentioning this, it’s a very interesting thought actually. For the uninitiated, the idea is that a product needs good engineering + good marketing to be successful. Products with only one of them will fail. The idea of Berkson’s fallacy is that even though it seems that good marketing is negatively correlated with engineering (and vice-versa) it’s actually because the baseline level of engineering and marketing is low, and products which happen to excel in one don’t need to excel in the other.
randmeerkat 4y ago
> Bad at the game, bad at engineering, but good at marketing. There's a lesson in here. Similar to how most of the software that runs the internet is poorly written and has bad fundamentals. Maybe now we can get rid of Byzantine tech interview processes and instead just focus on hiring people that are capable of hacking things together.
- fbdab103 4y ago
  >..focus on hiring people that are capable of hacking things together. Based on my daily frustrations with basically every piece of software, that already appears to be the status quo.
  - randmeerkat 4y ago
    > Based on my daily frustrations with basically every piece of software, that already appears to be the status quo. That’s the kind of elitist thinking that leads to Byzantine tech interviews and poor collaboration.
    - fbdab103 4y ago
      That was more a commentary on hate-the-game not the playa. Lots of smart and talented people in the field, yet software coming out the door routinely has egregious usability and performance defects. Bizarre prioritization of features that are dictated by anything other than end-user needs. Edit: remove the dig at management which is too easy a scapegoat to explain all ills
    - SideQuark 4y ago
      Black and white thinking that leads people to decry "elitist thinking" is exactly a signal of a person I never want to work with, because such un-nuanced understanding of tradeoffs required to work on professional projects is demonstrably beyond their current understanding of things that do exist for good reason. "Hacked together" is the software equivalent of fixing things with duct tape. It sounds cool and fun, and is fun to do for your own playthings, but it is a terrible mentality for developing solid projects.
nwienert 4y ago
The game reviews are really nice to quickly see the key points of the game. Plus the UI all over is better than Lichess. That and network effects explain the rest.
- owlglass 4y ago
  I'm curious, as someone who appreciates the simple and intuitive Lichess UI, what makes the Chess.com UI better than Lichess'?
  - filoleg 4y ago
    Yeah, I am with you on this. It isn't even the case that Lichess UI is simple because it lacks advanced features, it just straight up feels more intuitive and way more pleasant to interact with. Chess.com UI reminds me of overcluttered websites from late 2000s/early 2010s. Pure anecdata, but I only know one person irl who prefers chess.com, and I never managed to get a straight answer from him as to why, other than "i just play there and like it more, maybe i will check out Lichess at some point, idk."
    - nwienert 4y ago
      Could easily go into a very long list of reasons as a long-time app/UX developer, but playing against the computer is a good starting point: on Chess.com as a beginner I was immediately able to play against a wide variety of AI's, each is given to you by their ELO strength, and they are tuned to have different personalities so you can practice against the different types. This is so much better than Lichess where you literally choose "Strength" 1-8 (no idea what that means) and it only then clarifies "Stockfish 14 Level 8"... ok? And after the game, analysis and review interfaces have so many more helpful things for understanding the game, seeing threats, etc. Maybe if I was already very experienced with Chess I'd not mind so much. But this is just one example of many I found as I tested both a couple months ago when I was starting. On Lichess the puzzles are less well organized and explained, the Lessons interface is arcane and much less polished in terms of content overall though there are gems if you hunt and eventually figure out the UI, and online play is likewise has a lot of small things all over that make a big difference.
sn9 4y ago
Is it being good at marketing or just having the obvious URL? Or is that the same thing here?
rr888 4y ago
Surely the most important fundamental is that it makes money?
rco8786 4y ago
The domain name doesn't hurt either. Though I guess you can wrap that up under Marketing.
eatsyourtacos 4y ago
>but good at marketing I don't know much about all of this but it seems to me that owning chess.com is 99% of their success if it's not great at the game or great at the engineering aspect.
wslh 4y ago
> Similar to how most of the software that runs the internet is poorly written and has bad fundamentals. Microsoft Teams? Good lesson to startups and companies in general.
schiffern 4y ago
>There's a lesson in here. "#20. A bad design with a good presentation is doomed eventually. A good design with a bad presentation is doomed immediately." https://spacecraft.ssl.umd.edu/akins_laws.html https://spacecraft.ssl.umd.edu/akins_laws.html
bsder 4y ago
Akin's Law of Spacecraft Design Number 20: > 20. A bad design with a good presentation is doomed eventually. A good design with a bad presentation is doomed immediately.

nicky0 4y ago

“run by people who aren’t good at Chess” - what an odd statement to make.

recov 4y ago
Especially since the main spokesperson for the website is an IM

certifiedloud 4y ago

Lichess is better in every way except one: their push notifications are unreliable.

ecf 4y ago

Chess.com strikes me as a domain squatter who decided to try to make something of their site instead of selling it off once it was popular. Kudos to them, but at the end of the day they’re still domain squatters.

lolinder 4y ago
They bought the domain in 2005, probably for quite a lot of money.

JauntTrooper 4y ago

I'll admit it, I subscribe to chess.com. I pay $31 / year. I mainly joined for the unlimited post-game analysis and puzzles. I also like the app, it's fast and intuitive. Lichess is great too, nothing against them.

Euphorbium 4y ago

For just playing they may be equivalent, but for learning and analysing chess.com is way better.

oldstrangers 4y ago

>run by people who aren't good at chess To be fair, Danny Rensch is a 2402 FIDE rated player. That's better than 99.9% of people on the planet.

nchie 4y ago
"People" on the planet? If that's accurate it's not super impressive, considering that probably 95-99% (or more) of people don't take chess very seriously. I used to be the top 99-99.5% of Counter-Strike players (_very_ roughly obviously), and that wasn't very impressive at all even though it's way past top 99.9% of "people on the planet". (that being said,
- pc86 4y ago
  Ok just to be clear you're saying a 2400 rating isn't impressive? I'm not sure this is a hill worth dying on for the sake of useless pedantry.
- oldstrangers 4y ago
  You can find whatever semantic qualifier makes it impressive enough for you, but a 2400 FIDE rating is extremely impressive and difficult to achieve.
  - nchie 4y ago
    So I posted this without finishing (probably managed to fat finger it somehow). I meant to say that I thought 2400 meant quite a bit more than 99.9%.
threatofrain 4y ago
Most competitive sports & games are much more cruel than chess, but chess is still very cruel. Can you imagine achieving recognition or winning money as the 3000th best Fortnite player? Or the 3000th best League of Legends player? If so, you'd be winning on personality during streaming but certainly not on competitiveness.

marshmallowmad 4y ago

I prefer their analysis over lichess’s and I think they are a lot more feature rich. Also, I think the company in general is pretty good at chess? I’m an 1800 elo player for reference.

1270018080 4y ago

I did not realize lichess was so much better. I just switched. The UI was a little off putting for some reason when I first started getting into chess.

berjin 4y ago

Chess.com is more polished than Lichess. Particularly the puzzles and learning features.

benmmurphy 4y ago

I signed up to a chess.com membership a long time ago because the puzzles were behind a paywall and at the time lichess didn't have a puzzle rush mode. lichess now has similar puzzle modes to chess.com but it wasn't always like this.