This is a funny tweet, but in some sense it kind of was. It was a mostly universal, fun, communal experience that existed for a short period of time outside the pressures of the profit motive. It was valued for its use and not its exchange, it was free to everyone, and that made it a kind of small commons.

I think everyone knew that couldn’t last. It was either going to fade away or get bought. I don’t personally know anyone who begrudges the developer for cashing out (I would if I were in his shoes), but I’m still a little sad to see the fences start going up around it.

It's a completely client side implementation. You can download it and point any static webserver at it and it works. I.e. making a perfect clone of it is a minute's work and practically free to host.

So I don't agree that "couldn't last" is true. I mean zombo.com is still around, with essentially the same ongoing maintenance burden.

> You can download it and point any static webserver at it and it works.

You don't even need a web server. It works fine if you just save the HTML file to disk and open the file from the browser.

The code is trivial to download or even build your own, but the value of playing the same puzzle as everyone else is what’s getting paywalled. For a lot of people, the fun of wordle was solving the same puzzle and comparing notes with friends and strangers.

Agreed, I'm pretty annoyed with nyt for unnecessarily destroying that (and I do think they are in the process of destroying it). I was just pointing out that the idea it would have failed/died if they hadn't bought it is wrong.

It could have put up a donation page, like Wikipedia.

I don't blame the dev at all, I'd've probably taken the same deal, but an Exit To Community would have been a baller move: https://www.colorado.edu/lab/medlab/exit-to-community

Wow, I love this idea

I've not seen a single comment criticising the dev for it. I'm pretty annoyed with the nyt though.

Why? They bought it, they can do whatever they want with it.

They /can/ do whatever they want, that doesn't mean you have to like it.

Except they have done nothing other than move it from his personal URL to their own.

And added trackers and a cookie popup to it, and censored the word lists (guess and solution).

And their own statement about it implied they intend to put it behind a paywall eventually (wording was something like "it will initially remain free for new and existing users").

In 3 month no one talks about it anymore. And until then use waybackmachine.

If they want to put it behind a paywall, charge $100 a game, show Taboola links, or make people log in to a NYT account, that’s their choice. People can vote with their feet then. I just don’t get why folks are so salty. Does everyone on HN work for free?

Again with this bizarre logical nonsequiteur that because they can do something I'm not allowed to be annoyed by it. Second time in this direct chain of replies.

I don't get why people keep making this same completely nonsensical argument. Do you honestly think that whenever a company does something that they are legally permitted to do there is some obligation on everyone else to not feel any negative emotions about it? Is that how you think the world works?

I doubt you or "kertiyoowiyop" do actually think that. I suspect what's happening is that you're perfectly fine with what's happened (which is of course entirely your choice and fine with me) and you're seeing people who aren't, and because you don't share their objections you feel an urge to go around making comments to the effect of "your views are irrelevant, stop whining and deal with it", which is rude, information-free trolling.

If you think there's some actual reason I should agree with you that what the nyt's done here is fine and I have no cause to be annoyed by it then please, let's hear it. Otherwise, just accept that not everyone feels the same way as you about things.

And no, I don't work for free. I do play for free.

I think it strikes an emotional chord with the ongoing trend of private capital enclosing every social Commons it can.

While I don't think it's the right hill to die on (Wordle is a trivially cloneable public good; NYT's actual actions have been relatively mild; there are seventeen trillion bigger fish to fry) one can certainly understand a visceral reaction (violation of sanctity) when "community" bleeds into "corporation", even by the tiniest bit.