[goddstream]

What happened to us, as a society, that creates the expectation that a thing should be monetized?

I don't like ads, on the internet or TV, and therefore refuse to inflict them on anyone who plays the little game apps that I release, otherwise I'd be a hypocrite.

Well done to Josh for having the humanity for just making a thing that people enjoy, and stopping there.

[foepys]

To be fair, HN is run by a startup investor, which attracts a specific audience.

A lot of commenters here have kind of fetishized money and early retirement.

[analog31]

When I first started following HN, I remarked to my spouse: "On the east coast, you're nobody if you're not rich. On the west coast, you're nobody if you're not trying to get rich."

[melenaboija]

Totally agree and I see this trend worsening.

Although for me is still the best place to consume technical content.

[tomcam]

I grew up not rich and not safe. You could say I've fetishized money because I've got a fair amount of it and greatly enjoy my work. But I see it as the most efficient way to protect me and mine. Living in a nearly crime-free neighborhood and having a shade tree doesn't seem like a fetish to me. This would put me in the group of people who are interested in, but not obsessed by, a choice not to monetize.

[WHA8m]

As I understood your parent, he/she was not talking about your kind of rich (what I'd consider a healthy rich) but rather a money at all costs and money for its own sake -kind of rich.

[bingu]

Without the early retirement part.

[coldtea]

And often without the money part...

[multjoy]

You can fetishise both and not have either.

[spkm]

Which is my fetish.

[queuebert]

Buckhold

[Rastonbury]

Because we know a creator's sacrifice by not monetizing, money can buy them comfort, security and freedom (less time working, quitting job even). I don't think most people will fault anyone for choosing to monetise their work.

[slg]

Flappy Bird was reportedly making $50k per day during its short initial peak after going viral. If I was the Wordle dev, I wouldn't go crazy and try to turn Wordle into a full fledged company. However unless the dev is independently wealthy I honestly think it is a little stupid not to do any monetization. There is probably enough potential their to ride a month or two of popularity to lifelong financial security. Why not take that?

[palijer]

Why is it stupid to not do any monetization?

Josh built a fun game for his partner, and now a lot more people are enjoying it.

As long as it isn't horrendous in hosting costs, I'd say that is already a huge return on the project. Giving some great entertainment to folks is a win already in itself.

Using your skills to the benefit of your community (global in this case) is one of the best things you can do. You don't need to profit off it as well to make it an intelligent project.

It's not stupid to skip monetization.

[slg]

Because Josh could potentially monetize this project and allow both him and his partner to spend the rest of their lives doing nothing but making these fun projects for each other, working to benefit the global community, or whatever else they would want to do having achieved financial independence.

I also don't agree with the idea that any form of monetization is inherently hostile towards players. The game takes up roughly 500px by 800px on a page that is receiving millions of hits a day. You can throw an ad on that page and barely impact the user experience while pulling in 4 or 5 figures per day. There is money to be made there without resorting to adding microtransactions or something actively hostile to users.

[_moof]

> the rest of their lives

I have dramatically underestimated the amount of revenue one can get from serving ads on a modestly popular game that everyone will have forgotten in a month's time.

[MattRix]

It is more than “modestly” popular. I don’t know the exact users counts but I’m he could make well over a million dollars even if the game’s popularity only lasts a month… though I’m willing to bet it stays popular for much longer than that, seeing how it is becoming a daily habit/ritual for so many people.

[tlrobinson]

I agree with most of what you said, but I’d consider ads to be just as hostile to users.

[VSerge]

Something good for users would be access to previous worlde puzzles, it provides added content and fun to users, and sustains creation. Pricing doesn't have to be exploitative either.

[TigeriusKirk]

One line at the top.

"Wordle, brought to you by Nike" or whoever.

A ton of money and no burden for the users at all.

[slg]

Can you explain why replacing whitespace with a static banner ad is user hostile? I simply don't understand how someone can view that as on the same level as something like microtransactions.

[lostlogin]

… or the dev could do what they like, which is the entire point. Taking a less beaten path is much more interesting.

[declnz]

> I honestly think it is a little stupid not to do any monetization.

This statement makes me sad.

[treebog]

> I honestly think it is a little stupid not to do any monetization.

This may be a popular sentiment on hacker news but thankfully it is an unpopular view among the best programmers. If everyone thought like this, there would be no Linux, no GNU. We’d all be reading this in Internet Explorer on Windows

[slg]

Open source doesn’t mean there is no monetization strategy. For example you could be using Firefox on Ubuntu. Both of those are monetized. Plus most open source software couldn’t monetize as easily or harmlessly as a webpage.

[md_]

Surely the real idiots are the open source developers who give away code for free.

Suckers.

[md_]

What's amusing to me is:

a. Replies don't know if I'm being sarcastic or not.

b. I don't know if people who upvoted this comment thought I was being sarcastic or not.

[necovek]

While I appreciate the original sarcasm, I don't appreciate this: sarcasm is almost by definition hard to tell apart from real opinion because you are taking the position of someone who'd have such an opinion.

Since I consider the opinion of open source developers being idiots unlikely and silly, I am reading your message in a "consider best possible interpretation" way, which is that it's an ironic joke.

I would imagine that's what most people who've upvoted you thought as well.

Basically, if you resort to sarcasm, your "amusing" dilemmas should have obvious answers or you are misapplying it or using it in the wrong context (unless you are really aiming for just being an odd man out in a particular group, also known as a "troll" :).

[md_]

No, I was (of course?) being sarcastic. But the confused replies leave me more than a little worried that people genuinely agree with the sentiment!

[hammyhavoc]

Explain the logic behind this.

[necovek]

Not the GP, but my guess would be: irony.

[IndySun]

>Not the GP, but my guess would be: irony.

It's sarcasm, actually. A rare event here.

Surely, irony is depicted in the open-source, decentralised crowd, berating someone doing something not for money.

[IndySun]

>Surely the real idiots are the open source developers who give away code for free. Suckers.

A perfectly sarcastic remark. Rare to see here.

"Take my up vote" (or something like that).

Oh wait... Or are you serious?

[fsloth]

"I honestly think it is a little stupid not to do any monetization."

Maybe he does not care monetization?

Or there is no obvious path to monetization?

If you start an app phenomena from scratch with no inbuilt monetization mechanism designed from the start I would imagine implementing one would be non-trivial? Or is there an "obvious and simple" method to monetize said work?

[exreddit]

> independently wealthy

He should have a sweet reddit IPO coming his way, soon.

[true_religion]

Also… if you consider the size of most companies, 50k per day turns into 17 million a year.

Now you won’t be exactly poor, but it’s not the same thing as having won the lottery since you still need to pay for staff, marketing, etc.

[peruvian]

The creator has a good resume of tech work including two years at reddit where he created two viral campaigns and probably received stock for their upcoming IPO. Seems he's pretty comfortable and just wanted to do this for fun.

[tomcam]

Completely concur

[austenallred]

Eh, because one’s time is valuable/expensive and most people would love to have more time doing what they love.

It’s cool that he doesn’t want to monetize it, but I would absolutely understand if he did. You don’t have a hit like that often and it could free him up for years (life?) to build more stuff he’s interested in without answering to anyone.

[lexapro]

A lot of (most?) already super rich people monetize everything they can to the max. So I don't believe it's out of a desire to simply quit working. I think it's more about making money for the sake of making money, also known as greed.

[PragmaticPulp]

A lot of them do, but don’t underestimate the number of people who are role-playing as being more wealthy than they are.

I’m not talking about people with successful business exits or those who have been in high-paying careers for a few decades who have a side business. It’s the people pleading with you to pay $10/month for their side Substack or trying to charge for mediocre podcasts and such. One of the oldest tricks in the content marketing book is to pretend to be very wealthy and then charge others for access to your knowledge.

[WJW]

For a lot of people it's not even just simple greed but more an easy way to measure them against other people. They are often very ambitious types who take great pride in being "type A personalities" and things like that.

[indymike]

> What happened to us, as a society, that creates the expectation that a thing should be monetized?

It really comes from the fact that money is often needed for survival, and the human propensity for overdoing everything.

[gorjusborg]

It also doesn't hurt that recent generations were convinced to take on tens or hundreds of thousands of dollars in student debt, as teenagers.

Having a negative net worth makes you desperate for money.

[cjbgkagh]

Not only that but their parents and grandparents were and still are encouraged to live spendthrift lifestyles so younger generation will inherit less. I get a laugh out of certain ads; stuff your spoilt brat kids, you worked hard, you deserve to reverse mortgage your house and travel the world, buy that motorbike, do that thing.

[mbg721]

The astronomical costs of long-term care eat through any inheritance anyway.

[cjbgkagh]

Yes, there is a pamphlet for that as well. “No longer living life to the fullest, tired of being a burden on those around you, end of life services has a solution. For 5 easy payments of $39.99 a better place awaits you.”

In my opinion corporatism has worked with government to drive a wedge between family generations and I worry that the fallout will be quite brutal.

I have nightmares of desperate youth deliberately infecting their parents with black market Covid in an effort to speed up and preserve their inheritance.

[gorjusborg]

I worry that parents will find illicit ways to off themselves to prevent their family's fortune going to the for-profit 'healthcare' system whose main function is to extract money.

[gorjusborg]

My cynical side tells me that the real reluctance to legal euthanasia is that the dying are a huge profit center in the U.S..

[evilbob93]

Not saying you're wrong, but considering the societal disruption of people (anyone, including people that the society would like to keep around for one reason or another) caused by people checking out because of their definition of decreased quality of life. It's not just about whether the doctors think that your meat sack is gonna fail critically in the next 6 months (one criteria for assisted suicide) but whether you like what you see when you wake up and look around each day. If it's not fun any more, it will become harder to sell the idea of sticking around.

[stavros]

I agree with you. When I made IMGZ.org, many people here wouldn't believe that I made it for me and don't want it to grow (even though it's "pay for what you use"). I always found it that mindset a bit odd, to be unable to fathom why someone might want to make a cool thing just to make it, and to believe that they must (and should) want to make money off it.

[analyte123]

The more inequality there is in a society, the worse the consequences of not having money are. Money isn't about not having a second jet-ski or a five-star instead of a three-star hotel anymore - it's about not working 70 hour weeks while your kids are getting beat up in a dangerous school.

[mr90210]

That's exactly what I have been working for. For instance, I love cars, I used to love it even more, but nowadays I don't imagine myself putting USD 1 million on car, that just obnoxious. I would rather use that money to change my next generation.

[adrian_mrd]

In the same vein, why does (nearly) every organization ‘have’ to be for-profit?

What does that say about our societies that we have embedded the profit motive in (most) organisations?

Worth noting that obviously there are many not for profit organizations, just that they are largely clustered in the fields of health, education, social welfare, etc.

And also note the difference between (unlimited or at least not capped) profit and earning or being paid a living or even high wage. People often confuse the ability to earn a ‘good’ wage and a very high wage.

[d-d]

Why do shopping malls build selfie traps into the walkways now? Why is everyone's backdrop on Zoom so aesthetic? Why are brilliant computer scientists spending their best years reinventing banking? Why are talented artists leaving their easels behind to draw pixel zombies?

[adrian_mrd]

“Why is the sky blue? Why is water wet? Why did Judas, rat to Romans while Jesus slept? Stand up, you're out of luck” — ‘4th Chamber’ by GZA/Genius

[adamrt]

Top 5 fav albums. Related: I saw the push cart from Lone Wolf and Cub (Shogun Assassin) back in like 2005 while visiting Japan.

[chrisco255]

> What does that say about our societies that we have embedded the profit motive in (most) organisations?

It says that capital management is non-trivial and full of risk that needs to be proportionally rewarded with profit to justify the outlay.

Even non-profits have to grow revenue, because organizations require resources. But non-profits are hampered by the fact that they can't reward people for taking risks on them. A for profit organization can seek outside capital and reward risk. A non-profit can only seek donations or charge for services.

Ultimately, society benefits a great deal from it.

[adrian_mrd]

Sure, some good points but ultimately, it’s all about proportionately.

One can still receive many financial rewards in not-for-profit organizations: a high wage, payments, etc. without those rewards being ‘unlimited’ in scope.

As an experiment, imagine if the FAANGS and the BATs of this world were not for profit organizations; appreciating the role that venture capital played for all of them so maybe the experiment is that they wouldn’t exist!

What I struggle to understand is the relationship between the financial interests of humans (extending between the two extremes of billionaires on one hand and absolute poverty on the other) and organizational design in the west.

In other words, revenue is not profit and wages are still income, so why does the current system benefit capital (owners, investors) to such an extent.

Could we live in an alternate economic reality - maybe one that is ‘fairer’ if more of our for-profit organizations were not for profits. Or is that a fallacy?

[vmception]

money in has to exceed money out no matter what format the organization takes

[adrian_mrd]

What about money in = money out? If an organization pays its expenses - including the wages of its staff - well, why does there ‘need’ to be some cream leftover at the top?

What I am trying to better understand is why there is a preference (morally, legally, societally) for for-profit organizations.

Is it because (most) people are inherently profit-focused, or, that it is just the way things are? Amongst many other possible options.

[vmception]

non profit institutions are bound by the same constraints

sustainable ones do not move all of it to expenses or purpose

the answer of why is that the buffer allows them to continue existing. if there is any disruption in money coming in, then they cease to exist.

I understand you are wanting a different discussion that I didn't offer, based on wanting a reason that has nothing to do with moral legal or societal. There are more for profit organizations because it is easier to set one up, it is "permissionless" whereas a non-profit requires approval.

for profit and non profit are bound to the same fundamental constraints and I think that is misunderstood by many. both types of organizations have the capability of having none left over. both types of organizations have the risk of having a disruption in their ability to exist. both types can keep more for themselves. this is not a moral issue.

[cik]

Sounds like someone has never heard of government

[ChrisLomont]

Govt works exactly the same way. You think they spend more than they take in by ignoring the excess is lent to them by investors - even the govt is taking in more than it spends.

If you're considering the Fed, it too is a lender, and has a zero net asset sheet.

[adolph]

Yep, here’s the November 2021 balance sheet—clear as day, assets equal liabilities.

https://www.federalreserve.gov/monetarypolicy/files/balance_...

[ChrisLomont]

>why does (nearly) every organization ‘have’ to be for-profit?

The opposite, not for profit, usually means, for loss, which is not sustainable.

An organization designed to be zero net will also die during hiccups and downtimes.

So if you want something to be sustainable, provide stable jobs, provide continues benefits to whatever it serves, "for profit" means it runs on less than it makes, allowing it to survive.

Basically, all the "not for profit" things die, and you don't see them around very long.

[jt2190]

> The opposite, not for profit, usually means, for loss, which is not sustainable.

Not-for-profit means that 100% of the revenue is reinvested in the business (“mission”), rather than have a portion returned to owners/shareholders as profit.

Successful not-for-profit companies can have a problem of having more money than they can effectively deploy. This can lead to all sorts of problems: Overpaid staff; Inefficient operations; etc.

[ChrisLomont]

They still turn a profit. You're conflating the tax status not-for-profit with the wider phrase not for profit, meaning not trying to do things where outflow exceeds inflow.

[adrian_mrd]

You are confusing the terms loss (revenue < expenses) with not-for-profit.

In the context of organizations, not-for-profit doesn’t mean they are designed to be not profitable; rather, it means their primary goal is focused on other goals than making the most amount of profit possible.

It’s also a misnomer that not-for-profits can’t make profits, it’s just that those profits are not distributed to the capital (owners, investors) of the organization.

[cat_adorer]

Wikipedia, famously a non-profit funded solely by advertising, has consistently expanded for ~20 years, even while embarking on repeated, mostly useless projects unrelated to its current work (why does it need an internal search engine? it can already show a listing of related pages on its dominant service) instead of saving.

[mch82]

Thousands of nonprofits survive, according to the data.

https://nccs.urban.org/publication/registered-501c3-private-...

[avl999]

> What happened to us, as a society, that creates the expectation that a thing should be monetized?

The point is if he doesn't monetize it, someone else who works around the legalize and is less ethical about it will. It is going to very likely get monetized one way or the other, the only question is if the creator (for whom is is obviously a labor of love) is gonna monetize or someone else looking to make a buck.

[tp69]

Just because many people drive above the speed limit, doesn't mean you need to. Just because people dribble shit on twitter, doesn't mean you need to. Just because rich morons stick jade eggs into their vaginas, doesn't mean you need to. Just because there are greedy scumbags in the world, doesn't mean you need to be one too.

"But, but, someone's going to do it!" isn't even remotely a valid argument against having morals and ethics.

[Shugarl]

How does profiting from something valuable you created somehow makes you a greedy scumbag ? Besides, you're not addressing the main point : Someone is going to "steal" most of his hard labor, and will profit from it.

[juancb]

So if he monetizes it then others won't try to "steal" his hard work?

[Rastonbury]

You can look at it like this: Most people get paid for the work they do, doesn't mean you need to.

Sure but there are reasons people work for money, often times out of necessity, but also greed.

Is it immoral or unethical to chose to profit from Wordle? I think most would say not

[birdyrooster]

Consider Dwarf Fortress. It’s currently not monetized (directly) and yet no one can come in and steal the business for themselves because nothing can replace Dwarf Fortress without an incredible investment. Wordle is basic as hell and was never built to be competitive in a market place. I bet the author would have lost to competition so quickly that the profits wouldn’t be as great as a lot of people think.

[Moru]

It's not an original idea either so it would be a hard battle to fight for any sort of rights. Kids (and adults) have been playing this and very similar concepts for decades with pen and paper.

[taubek]

I don't play Wordle but I guess that there are some infrastructure costs at least? Like a server on which it runs. So why should the game bring fun and joy to people, and bills and cost to the creator?

[_moof]

It's a fully client-side app with one HTML doc and one JavaScript file, both of which come back with 304s once you've been there once. I'm willing to bet the monthly "infrastructure costs" are less than the cost of a pizza.

[taubek]

I didn't know that. Thanks for the pointer. So it is 7 requests, 122kb in total. It had 2 million users last weekend according to https://www.theguardian.com/games/2022/jan/11/wordle-creator.... So this is about 250GB of traffic. Yes, you are right this is not a lot of traffic once you get served the first time.

[gabrielsroka]

One of those, which is 60KB, comes from googletagmanager.com.

[adlorger]

counterpoint: nothing has happened to us as a society.

we have always had pressures to monitize things and do things for money, but of course money isnt everything and there have always been happy generous people who are happy to make things for free.

In fact, the proliferation of freely released, happy things in to the world has probably gone up over time.

[JaimeThompson]

We let MBAs and the like get too much power.

[tonyedgecombe]

The rot really set in with Thatcher and Reagan. My grandparents would be horrified at the way we live now. We pay people to make our coffee in the morning, we pay people to cook our evening meal, we pay people to look after our kids, we pay people to look after our ageing relatives, we pay people to change the oil in our car, we pay people to assemble flatpack furniture, we pay to exercise. We have succeeded in commercialising nearly everything.

It doesn't do us any good, do you know what correlates strongly with the likelihood of divorce? It's how much you spend on the honeymoon.

[wonderwonder]

"What happened to us, as a society, that creates the expectation that a thing should be monetized?"

the desire to one day retire.

[arpa]

ripped from the void, forced to be employed.

[kenjackson]

This is not new to us a society. I’d argue that what is new is that our standard of living is so high that people who aren’t wealthy and have an easy path to monetization wouldn’t do so.

I’m not a historian, so I could be wrong, but it seems like in the past — if you weren’t wealthy and could sell something and make a lot of money then you’d do so.

I’m personally glad he isn’t monetizing. But that’s for purely selfish reasons.

[adolph]

As Warhol said:

”You can be watching TV and see Coca-Cola, and you know that the President drinks Coke, Liz Taylor drinks Coke, and just think, you can drink Coke, too. A Coke is a Coke and no amount of money can get you a better Coke than the one the bum on the corner is drinking. All the Cokes are the same and all the Cokes are good. Liz Taylor knows it, the President knows it, the bum knows it, and you know it.”

https://www.phaidon.com/agenda/art/articles/2019/january/31/...

[GuB-42]

Because we expect people who do good things to be rewarded. It will incitate people to do more good things.

And in our society, it generally means money. With money, you eat better, sleep better, you are able to do more of the things you enjoy and less of the things you don't. Money also allows you to become charitable, for example, if you think homelessness is a problem, with money, you can build a shelter. There a reason charities want money above all else.

Now, what are "good things"? In the context of game apps, that's an game that a lot of people enjoy playing.

Put everything together and you get monetization, it is a way to turn goodness into rewards.

[doctorwho42]

That works only in theory.

I can name a plethora of good things that are not rewarded.

- teaching - writing good documentation - picking up trash - putting back your shopping cart - writing useful books (generally only the best of the best of the best get any real rewards) - helping a stranger - maintaining or improving the environment (don't drill baby drill)

So though I think the economic philosophy of providing incentive/rewards for good things, it is almost anything but that in practical economics

[bittercynic]

I think all of those things are rewarded, it's just that the rewards are intrinsic. If you do any of those things well, it will be enjoyable for you.

[falcolas]

Don’t forget, especially relevant for thus crowd, writing open source software.

[cat_adorer]

If that is the case, then the best way to monetize things would be to ask for donations; it allows the user to decide whether the person has done good work, rather than forcing them to have a less pleasant experience. Everyone should understand that the person who best understands how they feel is that person.

[teekert]

I mean, you could get rich with some simple tweaks probably, it take some strong convictions to not do it. I would probably not be so strong of mind.

[gaws]

Thank goodness you didn't make the game.

[teekert]

Yeah, probably, I'd milk you all until I could buy that nice country-side house with enough space never to have to hear my neighbors. It's my dream, I'm not giving it up so others don't have pay for their entertainment. I'm sorry.

[skinnymuch]

I could use an employee who does work that is their passion. Based on your comment, will you do the work for free? It’s your passion like Wordle guy after all

[nsonha]

> What happened to us, as a society, that creates the expectation that a thing should be monetized?

The assumption that this person is not privileged, and therefore, needs money? I mean if I had made something that could have generate a sustainable income, but chosen not to do so, and go to work to be a slave instead, there gotta be a good reason.

[VoodooJuJu]

Who is us? Which society? Most countries today are composed of a thousand thousand different cultures worshiping a hundred different gods. The only truly common ground bringing people together to/in these countries today is money.

[roenxi]

> What happened to us, as a society, that creates the expectation that a thing should be monetized?

If someone does good work then they should be rewarded.

In my experience, when I find a game I love I would like a way to pass some money back to the creator.

[md_]

I agree, but surely money is not the only kind of reward our society can imagine.

Actually, what am I saying. Of course it's the only kind of reward most of us imagine.

[Timwi]

I agree. I would like to be rewarded in the knowledge that I've made something good or useful for my fellow humans. Hopefully they can take it further and give something back. Expecting me to monetize it, to exploit my fellow humans for my own gain, is an insult.

[kerneloftruth]

When were we, as a society, so generous and selfless that we created products without a profit (or other reward) motive?

It's great to have exceptions like the wordle guy -- but the norm is perfectly fine, too.

[falcolas]

Vim. Emacs. VS Code. Log4J. Java. Python. iOS. Android OS. Firefox. Chromium. Safari. There’s quite the precedent for free in the software development sphere.

[skinnymuch]

VS Code, iOS, Android OS, Chromium, Safari all had huge backing and there are huge profit based reasons to make all of them. These should not be brought up at all.

Vim, Emacs, Java, Python: these are huge things. As a creator or high level contributor, your resume is set. Many of the creators of these and others have specific titles at Google getting paid well. Creating such big projects also allows you to get paid tens of thousands for speaking gigs or similar things. I believe it is the jquery creator who was making $500K+ a year doing speaking gigs.

None of these are like Wordle. It isn’t a huge coding achievement that will garner the same financial benefits every thing listed gives.

I didn’t follow the log4j thing but I’d expect the creator to have been able to get lucrative consulting and contracting work beyond what would normally be possible.

[padraic7a]

Public lending libraries.

Thankfully they're well established now. I can't imagine them being invented today.

[Clubber]

Jonas Salk should have statues erected of him in every city and every small town.

https://www.salk.edu/about/history-of-salk/jonas-salk/

[acchow]

Yes, applause to Josh for doing such a thing.

But I think getting paid for work is quite human, no?

[sergiomattei]

> What happened to us, as a society, that creates the expectation that a thing should be monetized?

Well, people need to eat.

[basscomm]

A lot of people have 'real jobs' that provide them with the means to eat, have shelter, etc. Those same people may have hobbies that they do on their own time for any number of reasons other than making money to live, and may, in fact, be sufficiently compensated at said 'real job' that they can cover the cost of their hobby, even if it turns out to be a virally-popular word game, without significantly impacting their pocketbook.

[skinnymuch]

How many of these people could survive a catastrophic life event for a long period of time? San example: something happens where some one can’t work for 3 years.

[Timwi]

What happened to us, as a society, that we cannot imagine eating without first exploiting other people?

Maybe we should just let everyone eat and not expect them to first prove themselves worthy of not being left to starve.

[keiferski]

I understand the hostility to making everything be monetized, however, workers do need to be paid. This might not be particularly relevant for a smartphone app, as software developers can easily get a job that pays 2x or 3x the average salary. Most "creators", however, are not as lucky as devs. The average creative person has a boring regular job and most can only focus on the work they care about if they charge money for it and/or receive sufficient donations.

This is often framed as a criticism of capitalism, or consumerism, or some other modern phenomenon. But for most of history, artisans and craftsmen were paid for their work. The expectation that they would be paid for their work is what established the profession in the first place, allowing for things like workshops and decades-long apprenticeships to exist. This is why things like the Italian Renaissance happened. In fact, I'd say that the majority of the historical artistic and cultural artifacts that we have today were created in this manner and not because the creator just wanted to make stuff that people enjoy.

It's only in the last century or two that (influenced by the Romantic movement) that the notion of art = self-expression has taken over the entire concept of culture.

[JKCalhoun]

Agree, but OP did not say ads.

[mbesto]

> What happened to us, as a society, that creates the expectation that a thing should be monetized?

People need to put food on the table and provide for their families. How do you expect society to do so if members are just giving away their goods and services?

[cowbellemoo]

What if some of what was given away to others was the food and provisions that families need?

[mbesto]

Then you would have a bartering system like we had 100's of years ago. Here's my 6x beaver pelts for your knife. Do I need to explain to you how inefficient that is?

[cat_adorer]

No, that's potluck (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Potluck), and, given its diversity across cultures and continued presence, it can't be very inefficient.

[mbesto]

Potluck...are you serious? There's nothing efficient or inefficient about the concept of potluck. It's a cultural celebration, not a "I need this to provide sustenance to my being".

[steviesteveo1]

Obligatory plug for https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Debt:_The_First_5000_Years

There's no evidence to support Adam Smith's barter economies. It's obviously inefficient so the question is really why you'd think people would do it

[cowbellemoo]

What if it wasn't transactional and people were just given what they needed?

[bee_rider]

It is nice that he's willing to give the game away for free, but bandwidth isn't free and it it becoming quite popular. I hope it doesn't get too pricey for him to pay for out of pocket or he has to do something annoying like include ads.

A $1 smartphone app seems like a reasonable way of preventing these sorts of issues.

[swiftcoder]

> bandwidth isn't free

Isn't it?

The 100 GB free bandwidth from Github/Netlify would cover north of a million monthly page loads of Wordle (and many times that when you account for browser caching). AWS CloudFront's free tier would cover 10 million page loads/month.

Cloudflare pages currently doesn't even have a bandwidth cap on their free offering yet...

[tapland]

Wow. So it's free if he shut down the site last week?

Crazy how good your solution is. No, bandwidth is far from free.

[swiftcoder]

He might have had to change hosting providers, and/or stick a new CDN in front, but for tiny (80 KB all told) client-side webapps like this with no database backend it's entirely feasible to host it for free pretty much indefinitely.

[_moof]

He uses Cloudflare.

[Moru]

Not all providers bill for network usage, you can also pay a flat fee for a fixed upload speed or a soft cap at a certain limit.

[elliekelly]

But then he’d have to spend the time creating and maintaining an iPhone and Android app. That takes time. As it is now the game is done. It’s an HTML page accessible by anyone with a browser. It requires nothing of him.