My locally owned coffee shop adopted hang.com as a rewards program. They have a daily wordle clone that gives three free guesses. If you don't get it in three, you have to be close to the store to unlock the last two. There's also a bingo board that is filled in when you buy a specific drink or pastry, loot boxes when you earn enough points, tasks, and most recently a candy crush clone to earn 10% off a drink.
I'll freely admit it works on me. I have changed my schedule to work from the coffee shop just because I didn't guess the word in three turns. However, if this were attached to a national chain I might be less hesitant to participate. It's kinda funny to me that a local "snooty" coffee shop has adopted the practices of the oppressors.
LurkandComment · 23m ago
The whole productivity movement is turning out to be a lie:
1) With the internet you can work from home and not have to travel. Time savings.
Your company: We want you to commute in everyday and waste time.
2) Use our platform to network productively.
Also platform: Waste hours of time playing shitty games.
3) AI will save you time.
Your Company: Don't negotiate with us because you are being productive. We will replace you with AI... really some people overseas we call AI.
vladms · 7m ago
I think that if you expect that "movements" that promise you something, to deliver at 100%, you are in for many disappointments.
Still, it is not like nothing happens:
1) Many people I know in IT work at least partially from home, thing which would have not been possible 20 years ago.
2) I find networking in any circumstances a hit and miss and depending also on luck. Of course people try to attract you with promises, but it was the same for events/conferences/you name it.
3) AI saves many people time. Maybe it will not reduce the time by 10x (and if it does, search for another job), but it's still better than nothing. And it's not something, new for example google translate saves people time since some time already.
ajkjk · 13m ago
They're not exactly lies; being a lie would imply it was claimed to be true in the first place. Whomst among us still believes thinks that a company saying "use our platform to network productively" is an assertion of truth? It's slop (AI-generated or not): filler text that goes where the filler text goes (website copy, CEO's mouths) in order to not upset the mysterious pipeline by which ads make money magically appear. It is not functionally different from "Lorem Ipsum" text.
InfinityByTen · 9m ago
I would be curious to search up how did puzzles make it into newspapers and magazines back in the day. I have a hunch we are just repeating the same cycle again, only the platform changed :)
InfinityByTen · 6m ago
And just like that, I decided to ask perplexity about this, since AI is the talk of the town
> For example, during wartime or economic uncertainty, puzzles like crosswords were promoted as a way to "escape the woes of the news pages," with editors explicitly noting that readers needed diversions during stressful times. This strategy proved effective: as readers grew to expect puzzles, newspapers benefited from increased sales and more consistent readership, which in turn attracted more advertisers.
We are escaping the woes of AI and radicalization, I guess..
gcanyon · 2m ago
To me the canonical example of this is meh.com. They offer one product per day, and each day there is a “meh” button. You log in, click the button, it spins and reveals a custom “meh” face tailored to the thing on offer that day. You can only click it that day —- it changes each day, no historical option —- and on the home page it shows how many days in a row you have clicked it. On your account page it shows all the ones you have clicked.
The button does nothing: no discount, no deal, nothing. And yet at the end of Meh’s first year they issued a report and said that something like seventeen people had clicked that button every day of that year. That kind of habit is huge for a site like meh.com, and they accomplished it with a silly button that does nothing but show a custom illustration.
jasperry · 31m ago
I quit Wordle when NYT bought it and started asking me to make an account. But I started again using the app because one of my kids does it and, as the article says, it does give something to talk to people about. So far, you don't have to make an account to use the app. I'll never make an account to be tracked just to play a word game.
bezo226 · 3m ago
Love daily games. Hate their commercialization.
kiru_io · 26m ago
I’ve created a few "daily puzzle" games (e.g., [0] and [1]), and it still surprises me when I meet a random stranger who occasionally plays them. Even now, I can’t quite explain why people keep coming back to the site every day.
But maybe for many, it's just a small daily ritual to distract for a few minutes.
That’s exactly what I found fascinating while researching this — the “why” seems to be part habit loop, part social cue, and part micro-reward.
v4nn4 · 23m ago
I’ve been watching this space for a while and built my own puzzle with Cursor. Vibe coding speeds things up, but getting the idea, difficulty balance, and UI right is still tricky. Probably depends a lot on the type of puzzle (word-based vs. object placement, etc.).
%$#% that $%@%. Put down the computer, go do anything else.
No comments yet
bji9jhff · 32m ago
How is this different than daily crossword in newspaper?
65 · 28s ago
Maybe it makes sense for NYT or LinkedIn, but why YouTube and Netflix need games seems like a weird product market fit.
celltalk · 24m ago
I have made few games myself back in the days, still some people play. Most notably https://numbword.com
teekert · 31m ago
LinkedIn tells me I have so many (ex) co-workers that play these games and I always think about the collective time wasted by all those people and close LinkedIn in disgust.
I started monitoring LinkedIn for assignments and networking opportunities. But it's just FaceBook with more AI cringe. I don't know what I hope to find anymore when I open it out of habit.
righthand · 24m ago
The market is ripe for a professional network that relies on invite only web of trust to displace the trash that is linkedin.
morkalork · 27m ago
I hadn't logged in to LinkedIn for about 4 years until recently and while I'd seen/heard about the insane content that people posted, what surprised me was the stuff like puzzle games. What is this, 2000s era office worker nostalgia for solitaire on the pc?
rietta · 16m ago
I still play Solitaire on my computer sometimes ;-p
hooverd · 58m ago
Don't forget to do your LinkedIn dailies! I'm a LinkedIn F2P player; maybe they should offer premium for so many LinkedInGems.
I'll freely admit it works on me. I have changed my schedule to work from the coffee shop just because I didn't guess the word in three turns. However, if this were attached to a national chain I might be less hesitant to participate. It's kinda funny to me that a local "snooty" coffee shop has adopted the practices of the oppressors.
1) With the internet you can work from home and not have to travel. Time savings.
Your company: We want you to commute in everyday and waste time.
2) Use our platform to network productively.
Also platform: Waste hours of time playing shitty games.
3) AI will save you time.
Your Company: Don't negotiate with us because you are being productive. We will replace you with AI... really some people overseas we call AI.
Still, it is not like nothing happens:
1) Many people I know in IT work at least partially from home, thing which would have not been possible 20 years ago.
2) I find networking in any circumstances a hit and miss and depending also on luck. Of course people try to attract you with promises, but it was the same for events/conferences/you name it.
3) AI saves many people time. Maybe it will not reduce the time by 10x (and if it does, search for another job), but it's still better than nothing. And it's not something, new for example google translate saves people time since some time already.
> For example, during wartime or economic uncertainty, puzzles like crosswords were promoted as a way to "escape the woes of the news pages," with editors explicitly noting that readers needed diversions during stressful times. This strategy proved effective: as readers grew to expect puzzles, newspapers benefited from increased sales and more consistent readership, which in turn attracted more advertisers.
We are escaping the woes of AI and radicalization, I guess..
The button does nothing: no discount, no deal, nothing. And yet at the end of Meh’s first year they issued a report and said that something like seventeen people had clicked that button every day of that year. That kind of habit is huge for a site like meh.com, and they accomplished it with a silly button that does nothing but show a custom illustration.
[0] https://mathlegame.com/ [1] https://colorguesser.com/
Shameless plug: https://play7fold.com
No comments yet
I started monitoring LinkedIn for assignments and networking opportunities. But it's just FaceBook with more AI cringe. I don't know what I hope to find anymore when I open it out of habit.