Do not promote war, chess.com!

I am leaving chess.com. No big deal, not many people will notice. Even less will care. It should be a big deal though — at least for an educated, civilized, human and emphatic society. How can we accept that chess.com places ads for something that is called World War 3?

I was a loyal supporter of chess.com. Yes, I was happy to support this company with some money each year and I appreciated what they offered — at least so far as I could see what they offered. As my paid membership was ads-free I didn't notice all the bullshit they were advertising for.

Just yesterday my paid account ran out. I have no idea why: It had been automatically renewed for the last six years. Now it was not.

Without the paid account my chess.com screen suddenly was full of ads. And again yes: I know that placing ads is a common business model.

We have to learn: This concept is sick!

Not seeing all the advertisements for years I simply forgot about what non-members had to see on the chess.com website: Ads for nearly everything you can think of — well, I refer to a "normal world". So of course no atomic bombs, drugs, Putins missing shirt or Trumps orange hair were offered.

Still most of this non-chess related "content" — if not all — was without any use or meaning to people who were interested in playing chess and had learned that life should be more about than consuming. We have to learn that generating such "content" is nothing that supports what human beings really need. Such "content" only generates money for very few people. It is nothing a grown-up society will benefit or should benefit from — as long as we think that human beings can do more.

We will not harm you if you pay us money

These ads are painful. Maybe not for all — but people that do not care about all this on-screen nonsense remind me of supermarket's shrugging employees who do not notice the music anymore that floods their ears and brains all day. If I ask them they mostly tell me that the music is a pain and that they stopped noticing.

Is this really the world we want it to be? Is this what we appreciate? Is this how we think we should live?

Chess.com's business concept goes like this: Hey, pay us some money (minimum 29 USD per year) and we will hide all the annoying ads! They leave away the word "annoying" though.

Yes, there is an additional value for this fee regarding chess features. Some of them are good, maybe even helpful — on the other hand one can live without such features and still play chess on chess.com. But: One has to be ready then to stand all these stupid ads …

Especially for people with a small budget this is not only a lack of respect from chess.com — it is also without any insight from the big online chess company:  These players will probably never buy the shoes, shirts and other stuff that is advertized. But who cares? Chess.com obviously does not. They care for clicks. Clicks make money.

Why the heck after six years?

Now why do I complain today — after having been a happy member for such a long time already? It was just coincidence that I found out how chess.com's business model works. The trigger was that my account has not been renewed automatically after six years of Gold membership.

No big deal, right? Yes, one might think so. But yesterday I saw for the first time after all these years what chess.com expects non-paying members to watch: many many ads. Stupid ads. Annoying ads. Ads in English, ads in my mother tongue.

Even this could be accepted — at least in a world that is far away from being ideal and in a society that has no plans to make the earth a better place. Maybe I should phrase this more precisely: in a sick society without much hope beyond making money and being selfish.

Way beyond shoes

While I wrote a complaint in a chess.com forum about what had happened to my paid account  I suddenly saw an ad that popped up with this message:

World War 3
Go to war in Warszaw, Berlin, Moskow and in other places from the real world.

How insensitive is this? Advertising World War 3 in times like these? Yes, I am aware that it is only a game they are promoting — but right now people are not only afraid of another terrible war in Ukraine, many in this area are suffering today or have died already. And many more will die.

No, chess.com, I was a loyal supporter of your company — but I will not be part of your business anymore.

Rather sad, Frank