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.
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.
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.