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Comment by oli5679 | Hacker News Reader

If anyone is interested in online chess, https://lichess.org/ is a really interesting project. It is non-for-profit, avoiding freemium upselling and instead relying on user donations

Here is a great talk by the founder

https://youtu.be/LZgyVadkgmI

And here is the open-sourced code.

https://github.com/lichess-org

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As a lichess player myself I have to say I find it a bit tone deaf and annoying that it's peddled in every context chess.com is mentioned.

It’s because lichess is pretty significantly better than chess.com while being free. Creates that extra motivation to make that post.

Under that perspective I'm perhaps guilty of mentioning lichess unnecessarily, but I do think the site is an interesting phenomenon (i.e. providing cutting-edge technology, at no cost to users, without advertising or tracking).

Raising awareness of alternatives is good, but yep I think it's also fair to be critical of the way that awareness is generated.

I think it's an interesting phenomenon and worth spreading some info about, both because of the technical aspects and the philosophy of the creator I prefer.

I do the same in person with friends, and if they ignore me, or try it and prefer chess.com then not too much harm done:).

I have a chess.com account and wouldn’t have heard about lichess if not for this post.

I think it’s entirely warranted, given that lichess does not have the budget to sponsor big name chess streamers. The only thing that keeps lichess going is the user base.

Very enjoyable talk, thanks for sharing. Funny (amusing) to hear that lichess' competitors would pay professionals not to pay on lichess. Perhaps unsurprising in the era of influencers?

Yes Thibault Duplessis is a very funny guy and has made something great without capturing any personal value!

> Funny (amusing) to hear that lichess' competitors would pay professionals not to pay on lichess

That is true, nevertheless, many of the same Grandmasters still play using anonymous accounts. For obvious reasons, we should not point out which accounts these are.

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