[tylerhou]

They are not completely wrong. Crowdfunding a product is not the same as purchasing that product because often people only decide to donate because the resulting product is free. (For example, I give $5 a month to Lichess, but I am unwilling to pay for a Chess.com subscription.)

[theli0nheart]

I can understand why one would want to donate if you find the product useful, but donating because it’s free doesn’t make any sense to me. Could you elaborate?

[5560675260]

There is an argument that free chess service benefits chess community (and society in general) in a way that a paid service doesn't.

[tylerhou]

Lichess is not for profit, so donating to Lichess means that my dollar goes "farther" for infrastructure & helps subsidize the website (which has many features) for other people who may not be able to pay. The main developer only pays themselves $56k a year, when they could easily be making $300k+ in the valley.

https://docs.google.com/spreadsheets/d/1Si3PMUJGR9KrpE5lngSk...

Chess.com is for profit, so they have to maintain some profit margin and lock features behind paywalls to incentivize people to pay. The free experience is worse than Lichess.