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Comment by kshacker | Hacker News Reader

What did you lose?

I started playing just before ir was bought and I still enjoy a game a day like I started.

In the game? We lost AGORA, FIBRE, LYNCH, PUPAL, SLAVE and WENCH.

In our culture? We lost the spirit of prioritizing reasoned debate over “the narrative” and “the optics”. We lost the standards we had for challenging each other to grow and traded them in for incentives to solve problems with performative appeals or procedural machinations.

I didn't, but I'm admittedly not the typical user. I right-clicked and saved the Wordle page some weeks ago and have enjoyed my ad-free and non-tracked Wordle with original word lists ever since.

It's unusual that it is made this simple, and that's exactly because Wordle was conceived as a whimsical playful thing with viral potential (the creator had viral hits before), not as a money-making machine.

I have nothing but thanks and high praise for Mr. Wardle.

I mean this sincerely as a fellow HN user and human - stop looking at everything through a culture war lens. I'm sure you'll think my post is ironic, because you see the world at war with you. But take three minutes and meditate on the fact that maybe it isn't all evil, that not every little social adjustment you observe is part of a coordinated downward spiral.

We lost a cultural icon? This is amazing. Or is the joke passing me by?

I think just speaks to the age we live in now; everything has to be relentlessly analyzed. When Wolfenstein came out in the early 90s, nobody cared that the villains were Nazis. When a reboot came out some years ago, suddenly there's a need for 'discourse' about historical accuracy, and whether the Nazis deserve to be killed in a fictional game, and why there side of the story isn't emphasized.

Wait, there was really a "won't somebody think about the Nazis" movement? I'm curious to read more if you have a link, especially if this was more than a fringe group.

The illusion of innocence? The perspective that it might still be possible, on a shoestring budget within reach of a modest person, to create a massive, worldwide collective experience, that is engaging and fun without having any commercial ulterior motive?

> What did you lose?

User privacy, for one. The wordle page is now full of trackers. Freedom from arbitrary corporate decisions about which words are acceptable or not ('slave' is no longer acceptable, while 'cunts' is, for example) is another loss.

I use Brave Browser. I’m not an ad tech guru. I _feel_ that these various trackers you mention on this page shouldn’t have much (if any) purchase on my visits. But it could be a naive placebo effect. I’m curious from anyone who is more knowledgeable than me about whether what you mention is largely muted by using Brave, or if it’s just a feel good that actually does little?

I just checked; "slave" is an acceptable guess in Wordle, as is "cunts".

And I don't understand complaints about trackers; don't you know how to filter them out? I personally use Privacy Badger but there are many other choices.

> I just checked; "slave" is an acceptable guess in Wordle, as is "cunts".

Like I said in another comment:

> Up until today 'slave' (and 'agora', and 'wench' and etc.) was removed. It seems like starting today NYT has reinstated the previously-removed words. Interesting.

You can find plenty of news stories about it being removed in days before today, if you need a reference.

And knowing how to filter out trackers is not relevant to critiquing the practice of putting trackers in in the first place.

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