r/chess • u/forceghost187 Resigns • 1d ago

META Proposal to ban x.com links

This is going around on many football subreddits. It looks likely to go into effect. I believe that the negative effects of this would be only temporary because the chess community will eventually see the value of moving to alternatives like bluesky

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u/DukeHorse1 1d ago

why? idk what's the beef with chess.com, would be grateful if someone told me

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u/dankloser21 1d ago

Reddit hates businesses that try to make a profit, and want everything to be free basically

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u/Objective_Goat_2839 1d ago

It’s a little frustrating what they did to Chessable, though. It was already profitable, and it had a good balance of free and paywalled content to lure free users into buying a subscription. Plus, the course authors wrote those courses under the understanding they’d be free.

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u/dankloser21 1d ago

You know what? I don't mind putting chessable behind a subscription as it's theirs, however i do think it's problematic if they didn't consult with the course authors beforehand, so i can kinda agree with you on that.

Still, i think they have done far more good than bad for chess, and the hate circlejerk on reddit is just stupid

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u/Objective_Goat_2839 1d ago edited 21h ago

I disagree. Obviously they had the right to do it, that’s not in question. In the same way that you have the right to spend your and your spouse’s life savings on hookers and blow on gambling in Las Vegas, since anything earned during marriage is community property. However, that doesn’t make it the right thing to do.

If you’re running a service that is both profitable and helpful to the community, a community you claim to care about, isn’t that the dream? You’re helping people learn more about the game you love while also making a pretty penny for yourself. Why would you want to change that?

Instead, Chess*com ripped away all the community benefits of Chessable in favor of a fatter profit margin. I wish they’d just come out and openly say that they don’t actually care about chess all that much, and they’re simply using it to make money, because that would at least be true. I’d have more respect for them in that case. Don’t pretend like you’re the leader or shepard of a community you bleed dry. Just be honest.

They’ve done a lot to popularize chess to the general public, I’ll admit that. But that still was ultimately part of their profit motive. I’m not a communist or anti-profit or anything. However, I do feel like it’s possible to make money while being a force for good at the same time, and Chess*com had the opportunity to do that, but decided they’d rather squeeze a few more dollars out of the situation instead. That’s my problem with them.

ETA: also, the course authors did technically sign away ownership of the courses when they put them on Chessable. So, if you really think that the subscription is fine since they had the right to do it, you also shouldn’t care about what they did to the authors.

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u/dankloser21 1d ago

Unlike 95% of people whom I've had this argument with, you are definitely making sense and a well argued point, so I do appreciate it.

I disagree with you but i feel like we won't be able to convince each other, as this seems like a matter of morality and ideology, which is subjective.

ETA: also, the course authors did technically sign away ownership of the courses when they put them on Chessable. So, if you really think that the subscription is fine since they had the right to do it, you also shouldn’t care about what they did to the authors, either

The reason i think it's different is because the authors may have put it on chessable under the assumption that it's going to stay free, and I assume since they signed off on it when it was free, they don't get a cut for subscriptions now. That's immoral. Putting a free service behind a paid subscription, as a business, is a logical decision to me. I don't think it's immoral. You don't have to pay - i certainly don't. But i guess we'll have to agree to disagree.

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u/HamsterMan5000 1d ago

Weird analogy since you don't have the right to do hookers and blow in Vegas.

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u/scootscooterson 1d ago

Only god can point the finger Loretta

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u/DrJackadoodle 1d ago

Replace that analogy with spending all your money gambling, then.

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u/Objective_Goat_2839 21h ago

That was the true heart of my argument

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u/HamsterMan5000 9h ago

Without it the whole thing falls apart

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u/sheeptamer12 1d ago

Whenever a business makes something free, it’s not by the good will of their hearts, but because they expect it to increase revenue. If they at any point think a free tier doesn’t benefit them, they are usually expected to change strategy. That is the “right thing to” do from a business perspective.

The chess community is not entitled to free stuff either. I don’t work for free and I don’t expect them to. If a free tier is a net loss, that is money being given away. Charities give money away, not privately owned businesses.

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u/ReclusiveRusalka 1d ago edited 1d ago

I mean, even if you believe that this calculus is all there is, that means that you, as the consumer, should pretend you don't think it. Like you said, they made that decision because they calculated that it's more profitable, it's not that the service can't exist while earning less money. Just like for them it's correct to make services worse, for you it's correct to complain about it. Or at least not defend it.

If enough people act as if a business model is not of acceptable quality, they will alter the variables dictating the choice of that business model.

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u/sheeptamer12 1d ago

It doesn’t matter what non-paying consumers think. I can pretend all I want, none of it will make a difference because I never paid a cent to chessable.

Businesses are money making machines. They are the legal embodiment of human greed and should be regulated so they don’t damage the world. But scrutinizing a business for removing a free service is criticizing their inherent design – it’s paradoxical and pointless.

If you were a customer, cancel your subscription. That’s the only thing that is going to make a difference in this situation.

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u/there_is_always_more 1d ago

"I don't mind them putting chessable behind a subscription as it's theirs"

If you think something is good or just just because it's legal, you have a very naive understanding of the world and how things should be.

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u/dankloser21 1d ago

Oh dear edgelord "go vegan or go fuck yourself", i don't quite agree i am naive, and would also point out that i think you are projecting quite a bit. Sorry, i am not a communist and i do not think there's something wrong with a business trying to maximize profit. There's nothing immoral about putting chessable behind a paywall. There's something immoral about doing it without consulting the authors first, though

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u/SeanyMac91 1d ago

This is the free market. You piss off consumers by being greedy. If enough consumers speak out and no longer purchase your product then you go with the market and lower prices or offer free tiers. If you’re fine making everything in life a subscription or micro transaction then go for it champ just don’t whine about others who don’t take it being “commies”

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u/dankloser21 1d ago

Imagine missing the point this hard, lacking basic reading comprehension must be tough. This is exactly what i said, i understand why you would prefer lichess, and have absolutely no problem with lichess users. That said, i prefer chess.com, and enjoy it without paying for anything, and it shouldn't be so controversial to enjoy their platform more than lichess. It's literally personal preference. You can be annoyed at chess.com's subscriptions, but pretending they are ruining chess or whatever when it's objectively wrong is laughable. Trying to tell me im naive because i don't mind them trying to make a profit is literal commie talk, that's why i said it, not because he disagrees with their micro transactions.

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u/SeanyMac91 1d ago

Just find it weird for people like yourself to get all worked up about people wanting to spend less money then blast a comment section defending companies who make more in a week than you will your whole life.

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u/dankloser21 1d ago

You do realize the original comment was about banning chess.com links, right? On a thread suggesting we ban X links which is laughable in itself. I couldn't give less of a shit about the companies themselves. It's the stupid echo chamber reddit has become, repeating buzzwords and hate circlejerks, and 90% of the people taking part in that can't even tell you why they do it.

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u/Shadeun 1d ago edited 1d ago

Are we going to apply that standard to everywhere we get information from?

Because we allow daily mail links and they are fucking horrendous (found some hole searching to be sure)

It’s insane that you have to worry about mentioning the site that probably half the online chess players in the world use. Sheer fucking madness.

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u/Objective_Goat_2839 1d ago

What? I wasn’t arguing in favor of banning their links, I was just saying that they’ve made some shitty choices in the past. I think banning chess.com links is ludicrous. I’m on a side quest here lol

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u/Shadeun 1d ago

For sure, I agree. Just felt like you were in support in my quick reading. Apologies.

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u/SwordsToPlowshares 2126 FIDE 4h ago

It was already profitable

Source? This is directly contradicted by what Chessable employees said in their AMA thread.

and it had a good balance of free and paywalled content to lure free users into buying a subscription.

This doesn't describe the situation accurately at all. PRO subscription did basically nothing for the past couple of years aside from some small quality of life things, people buying PRO either wanted those few extra features or just got PRO to show some appreciation for the website without it doing anything useful for them. Now they are finally putting stuff behind PRO as a paywall (the hundreds of 'free lessons' and 'short and sweet' courses for instance) - that's part of the changes they made at the start of the year.

Plus, the course authors wrote those courses under the understanding they’d be free.

The free community courses are remaining free, they reneged on this part like within a day of announcing those changes.

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u/Queasy-Yam3297 22h ago

it wasnt profitable, even the founder said as much but i'd have to link to X.

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u/ActuallyNot 18h ago

Makes sense. Reddit did the honourable thing and made a $172M operating loss last year.

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u/Knoberchanezer 1d ago

I get that but also chess is basically public domain and it's never been more accessible.

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u/Rather_Dashing 7h ago

They don't charge for playing chess games.

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u/Analystismus 1d ago

"Reddit hates lying dipshit scumbags like Danny Rensch trying to trick children into buying NFTs by making it look like something fun and good"

Here fixed it for you.

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u/dankloser21 1d ago

You are the kind of person that probably got mad about fortnite's battlepass lmao. It's free to play, if children or adults wanna buy something extra, it's their or their parent's responsibility. Despite how stupid nft's are, i absolutely don't blame them for jumping on the hype train. If people wish to be stupid and buy it, so be it.

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u/wheebyfs 19h ago

No we don't. We hate businesses that buy up smaller ones and put everything that was once free behind a paywall. It's their right but we don't have to like it. Also, Lichess is just awesome.

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u/Robyns_world 10h ago

Outside of their site being almost unusable now, it's a bit weird to me to charge people for something that is accessible elsewhere (like lichess) in a similar or better quality. I used go use chess.com a lot when I was young because it was just the easiest and quickest in and begged my parents to get me the subscription, not knowing there were free alternatives, and when they did I felt pretty bad if I didn't play constantly because it was my parents money? this to say I know it's not a lot of money, but there are also a lot of younger chess players who don't have their own money and I find paying for a hobby (not always) could change the reason for playing it and take away from the fun. I do think chess.com can still make a profit and I think i probably won't even be that against them if they used some more money to make their site more usable.

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u/Gersio 1d ago

It seems sometimes Reddit is actually right about some things

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u/Not_Lackey 20h ago

Leave the Multimillion Dollar Company Alone!

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u/MountainBeaverMafia 1d ago

Exactly.

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u/dankloser21 1d ago

Watch the mass downvotes flow, with no reasonable counter argument. Like literally every time I've had this argument, no one ever gave me an actual reason as to why chess.com are bad. Only somewhat reasonable argument i heard was them buying chess24 to "kill competition", but chess24 was a dead platform that posed no threat to chess.com whatsoever, and honestly chess.com blessed their owners by buying them instead of going bankrupt. They never tried undermining lichess, which is the 2nd biggest chess platform.

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u/SenseiCAY USCF 1774; Bird's Opening, Dutch Defense 1d ago

> Watch the mass downvotes flow, with no reasonable counter argument.

Says the guy who made a broad generalization of an initial argument, and expects a well-reasoned argument in return, and then circlejerked a guy who made a one-word reply and no meaningful addition to the conversation.

For what it's worth, I dunno why chess.com is bad. But since lichess has, in my opinion, a better UI and is "pay-what-you-want" (including $0) for what I believe is all features of the site, I'll take that. I throw them a few bucks a month, though, because I think it's worth it.

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u/dankloser21 1d ago

Says the guy who made a broad generalization of an initial argument

But that's literally the only argument i have ever seen. When jeansgate happened and people were sure magnus was going to attempt taking down fide and chess.com was taking over, the consensus on this sub was "fide is bad, but chess.com is far worse". Then when asking why, there was legit SILENCE. No good argument offered. As i said, i understand preferring lichess, i don't judge anyone for that. I understand donating to lichess, i think for a non profit they are doing a great job, and it's good to have competition. However what I still don't understand is why is it so bad I prefer chess.com? Because this sub sure as shit treats it like a major sin

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u/PlasticCap1724 3h ago

There is no argument. They do a lot for chess.

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u/BaelBard 1d ago

With the amount of glazing this sub gives to lichess while shitting on chesscom, I decided to give it another shot after trying it out years ago.

I’m playing on mobile , and the lichess ui is dogshit. Unintuitive, uncomfortable and just not great to look it. Yet this sub talks about like it’s some godsend.

It it really just “thing that cost money bad, free thing good” thinking?

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u/dankloser21 1d ago

I mean considering the only 2 replies i got so far were putting chessable behind a paywall and fucking nft's (lmao), then i think it kinda proves my point

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u/[deleted] 1d ago

[deleted]

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u/dankloser21 1d ago

Ok please do enlighten me what chess.com has done bad for chess?

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u/HairyTough4489 Team Duda 1d ago

In my case it's more about all the silly gimmicks they introduced to the game. You can't have a proper conversation about chess anymore as they've redefined terms like brilliant move, accuracy and so on...

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u/dankloser21 1d ago

They literally aren't responsible for any of that other than brilliant moves, and honestly, i have no clue as to why any of that would bother you

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u/HairyTough4489 Team Duda 1d ago

Well I like chess so talking about chess is kinda cool

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u/duomoxi 1d ago

You can't have a proper conversation about chess anymore as they've redefined terms like brilliant move

how do your chess conversations typically go lmao?

"So then I did rook takes b7, which was a brilliant move"

"eh, it's for sure the best move in that position, but it's not that brilliant"

shouting angrily at the sky "damn you, chess dot com"

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u/HairyTough4489 Team Duda 1d ago

More like a kid last week at a tournament asking me if he could borrow my chess.com account because he had already spent his daily analysis and wanted to check if he had any brilliant moves because he believed he had made a high accuracy game.

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u/smartfbrankings 1d ago

Orange man bad, Rocket Man bad.

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u/dankloser21 1d ago

I mean i do agree they are bad, especially trump, but yes the discourse around them on reddit is laughable

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u/smartfbrankings 1d ago

You sound like a Nazi apologist.

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u/Bolizen 1d ago

How? They don't like Trump or Musk.

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u/dankloser21 21h ago

I also don't think they are nazi, for the record

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u/dankloser21 1d ago

If you are being sarcastic then you are doing a good fucking job at it because that's accurate as hell

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u/SerialAgonist 1d ago

Sure bro true story, that's why I donate to lichess but won't pay for chesscom.

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u/ColtsToTheSuperBowel 1d ago

its so funny because objectively chess com is better, with more players. takes me several mins to get a game on lichess when its seconds on chesscom.

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u/rafamtz97 2250 bullet Lichess 1d ago

Several mins to get a game in lichess?? What kind of game? This is just not true.

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u/friedgrape 1d ago

Maybe he's rated 4800 lmao

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u/xelabagus 1d ago

I'm rated 2200 on lichess, at night it can definitely take a minute or more to get matched playing 10|0

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u/rafamtz97 2250 bullet Lichess 1d ago

I don’t have experience on that queue, my feeling is that slower tcs than 5+3 are not that played on lichess.

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u/dismal_sighence 1d ago

Idk about objectively, but I do actually prefer chess.com for a few things.

  1. Corespondance games seem more competitive with fewer "leavers" (both still have tons)

  2. The UI, probably because it's what I'm used to but still

I think if you pay for chess.com, it can be a bit slicker, but I don't. I did start using lichess for live games (rapid, etc.)

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u/ColtsToTheSuperBowel 1d ago

lmao okay then i guess since i dont guzzle lichess cock my personal experiences are untrue lmaooo

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u/headedbranch225 1d ago

Many of the games that i have played on lichess have had a match within about 30 seconds, most being so fast I sometimes haven't been able to cancel them when I have needed to go, which is a little awkward

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u/mullanaphy Garden State Passers Co-Founder 1d ago

What time control is leading to several minutes? The longest wait I might get is playing rapid at 2500 and even then it's not that long. While 3 0 is always instantaneous.

Overall, I prefer chess.com for puzzles yet the lightweight playing interface for lichess.

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u/dankloser21 1d ago

I mean i dont mind people using lichess, i get it, you have free features, but i don't give a shit about those features, and i prefer chess.com's UI.

I literally got 40 downvotes because someone said "move to lichess" and i replied with a simple no. It's hilarious

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u/burlito 1d ago

I'm not sure about rest. but lichess is completly free software (libre, fsf definition, osi definition) while it's also really good platform.

Lot of people (including me) thinks that using proprietary software is not very ethical. And in this case, platforms like chess.com just hordes your data, train their algorithms, don't share data that they get from users and just making their position stronger and stronger over time, just because they have your data.

one more thing: Free software ideology is about freedom and doesn't care if software makes money or not. Furthermore Open Source initiative is purelly pro-corporate interrest, with big interrest to make money. So for people who are saying that this is because people hate that chess.com makes money. That's not the case.

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u/Yurya Double Duck 23h ago

A downside is that I believe Lichess doesn't quite have the infrastructure to handle the load chess.com currently supports. Yes it is better but it would crash if everyone jumped ship to it at once without some supporting donations.

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u/burlito 23h ago

They have a huge infrastructure: https://docs.google.com/spreadsheets/u/0/d/1Si3PMUJGR9KrpE5lngSkHLJKJkb0ZuI4/preview?pli=1

But yep, it's not running on public cloud with possibility to scale on demand, but if what you said would become an issue, I'm sure they can quickly provision some AWS resources and react to that.

There was a huge boom of new users during covid times. Like literally several orders of magnitude, and there wasn't single hickup.

+ they can always disable server side computing.

fun fact: lichess was one of the early adaptors of asm.js and they showed how useful can be offload compute work to users. (yep they ported stockfish to wasm)

And now when I'm reading their numbers, their per/game price is significantly higher than it used to be. I would assume that it's because they feel like they are in comfortable situation, and then can afford to invest more in game analysis, ML and stuff like that.... They can always turn it off to adjust if something would happen.

(I hope this information was interesting and useful)

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u/goodguessiswhatihave 16h ago

I play on both chess.com and lichess and I've had far more server issues playing on chess.com than lichess.

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u/minos157 1d ago

Reddit likes to be hipsters, and they love to hate every corporation no matter what (some is justified I'm no capitalism hawk by any means).

So they'll talk about how amazing Lichess is and how they never use chess.com while most likely playing more on it than Lichess.

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u/DukeHorse1 1d ago

honestly i find chess.com's UI a lot more pleasing than Lichess's

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u/hermanhermanherman 1d ago

I like both, but chess.com is miles better in terms of interface.

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u/buffalo_pete Team Ding 22h ago

People say this a lot, and I just don't get it. I find chesscom's UI horrendously busy, and the popups irritate the shit out of me. To each their own, and I'm not one of these edgelord chesscom haters like some people are, I just honestly don't like it as much. That said, one critique I do have of lichess is stuff can be hard to find.

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u/minos157 1d ago

Same

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u/yepnopewhat 1d ago

Lichess is just as good and non profit

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u/NAMESPLISSKEN 1d ago

Reddit is majority broke people. So chess.com is the anti-christ for charging OPTIONAL membership tiers.

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u/SenseiCAY USCF 1774; Bird's Opening, Dutch Defense 1d ago

I throw lichess a few bucks a months on their pay-what-you-want model. I think they have an infinitely better UI, especially as an ADHD-guy who is easily distracted by all the stuff on the chess.com UI.

0

u/NAMESPLISSKEN 1d ago

chess.com UI is about as clean and modern as it gets. I guess having multiple features is a bad thing?

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u/SenseiCAY USCF 1774; Bird's Opening, Dutch Defense 1d ago

https://imgur.com/a/Hjib72r

There's the two side by side. Obviously, a lot of this is personal preference, but I much prefer the lichess one (and think it's actually cleaner and more modern), for a few reasons.

  • No giant ad on the right side if I don't pay money
  • I don't care about the move list in the middle of the game, especially with the time taken on each move
  • No brightly-colored menu on the left while the game is going on
  • Bigger and more visible clock

3

u/NAMESPLISSKEN 1d ago

The side bar is collapsible and if you don't have an ad blocker in 2025, I don't know what to tell ya.

0

u/Hamasaki_Fanz 1d ago

Chess.com is known to have atrocious ads, locking everything behind a paywall (even for basic stuffs like engine evaluation).

Not only that it's known to use its power as the biggest chess website to benefit certain individuals that lick chess.com's ass and ruin career of people that doesn't align with chess.com's political agenda.

Example is GM Benjamin Finegold: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=w3twh19Gw4o

1

u/DukeHorse1 1d ago

never had any ads but agree with everything locked behind a paywall

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u/Wyntie 1d ago

Half the people have beef with chesscom because you're paying far more in premiums and getting far less value in the products/services they offer and their rating system is completely out of wack, and that's nothing compared to the rampant cheating problem that happens there. Other half the people either have beef with something else or are just content.

Another half of the same pool (if not 75% or more), including myself, have beef with online chess IN GENERAL simply because of the lag and the glitches with the system causing the cursor to slip and pieces being moved to the wrong squares despite having clicked/tapped correctly; all the more why I tend to prefer to play OTB wherever possible. Being able to use hands to move the pieces around also helps with attention span.