[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.

[sangnoir]

> 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.

And therein lies the contradiction - it has become a daily ritual because it doesn't demand continual "engagement" or trick people into becoming addicted: 2 things that will increase monetizability.

My thoughts are it's commendable for someone to share their delightful creation with the world for free. Something pure, with no dark patterns or gray areas. It is a breath of fresh air, and legitimately makes the world a better place for countless people. Thanks Josh!

[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.

[johannes1234321]

however then he has customers. And customer's demands can be annoying to deal with. Outcry from mere users who don't pay anything can be ignored.

[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.

[lostlogin]

That really sounds crass and gross. I genuinely dislike the idea and might not play.

As a changes, I’d like regionalisation. ‘Favour’ was the word a day or 2 ago. That’s not the spelling where I am.

In return I’d pay up front if requested, a one off or small subscription.

[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.

[michaelt]

The moment you add advertising, you need to welcome a bunch of tracking and spying on users, an unavoidable cookie consent popover, a huge network of unchecked 'partners' any of whom can serve the latest browser exploits to your users, and the ads will be tasteless - scams, malware, and grinning mouths full of rotten teeth.

[Zababa]

Here, I'll try to explain to you why (this message was brough to you by pierce and pierce aquisitions) replacing whitespace with a static banner ad is user hostile. It distracts (feeling too distracted? Try the new chrome extension distractionBlockr that will block all the distractions so you can focus on your work!) from the content.

[tlrobinson]

One way to look at it: advertisements are trying to influence your thoughts and behavior. At least micro-transactions are (or can be) a simple and honest exchange of money for a service.

[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.

[necovek]

Sarcasm is, by definition, use of irony to be a bit meaner than just make fun of something. It's still irony, and I am not even sure it qualifies for the sarcastic qualities on top.

I find that sarcasm or irony are pretty frequent on HN, or maybe it's just me who thinks it is so. ;-)

[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