But the number of people logged on and number of games in live chess stays steady.
So where are these thousands of accounts who never log in coming from? People accidentally clicking some Facebook popup that links their account to chess.com or what?
If you had been following chess.com for a long time, you would have noticed the growth in numbers of players and number of games too.
Why don't we try tracking it?
But the number of people logged on and number of games in live chess stays steady.
So where are these thousands of accounts who never log in coming from? People accidentally clicking some Facebook popup that links their account to chess.com or what?
If you had been following chess.com for a long time, you would have noticed the growth in numbers of players and number of games too.
Why don't we try tracking it?
Yes, I have been following for a long time.
Number of players in live chess has more than doubled compared to ~8 years ago.
Lets be generous and say from 10K to 50K
Adding 40K active players in 8 years means 5K players a year.
In other words if 5K players join per day, about 1/5th of 1% are active (1 out of 365)
Notice that in the screenshot I just took, there are 78K people online with 8.4K joining in the last 24 hours.
So we can reasonably expect chess.com to double its active member less than 10 days from now right?
Riiiiiight?
lol
Lots os beginners play for a couple of weeks and then give up
I guess so.
I guess since google returns chess.com at the top of page 1 for searching "chess" that's how all these people find it.
It isn't a particularly beginner friendly site. I think that shows in how many people {don't) stick around. There are a lot of ways that is true. For example, there is no beginner forum. There is no obvious place to go and play other beginners. The regular forums are full of egos telling anyone with a low rating how wonderful they are/everyone else is beneath a worm. And the list goes on. It is a shame because some of this would be really pretty easy to change.
It isn't a particularly beginner friendly site. I think that shows in how many people {don't) stick around. There are a lot of ways that is true. For example, there is no beginner forum. There is no obvious place to go and play other beginners. The regular forums are full of egos telling anyone with a low rating how wonderful they are/everyone else is beneath a worm. And the list goes on. It is a shame because some of this would be really pretty easy to change.
What would be a good change?
Chess.com has some useful resources, but I agree they're not immediately obvious. The home page is a bunch of chess news.
Links like this exist, not sue how easy they are to find though
https://www.chess.com/article/view/study-plan-directory
https://www.chess.com/lessons/courses/beginner
As one of the main tabs, (i.e. Home, Play, Learn, etc.) they could have a beginners tab for players with ratings below some threshold (so as not to annoy higher rated players). That could point to some of the resources they have that are good for beginners. It could also point to a playing hall where they would play only other beginners. And they should have their own forum, preferably with some helpful mods who are good about answering questions without an attitude.
As one of the main tabs, (i.e. Home, Play, Learn, etc.) they could have a beginners tab for players with ratings below some threshold (so as not to annoy higher rated players). That could point to some of the resources they have that are good for beginners. It could also point to a playing hall where they would play only other beginners. And they should have their own forum, preferably with some helpful mods who are good about answering questions without an attitude.
My impression is chess.com has never cared much about the forums, but with enough moderators... even (gasp) paying some of them, that might work... because imagine the trolls who would either lower their rating on purpose, or new members who aren't beginners and don't realize that it's supposed to be a forum for beginners only.
Same problem for the beginner playing hall.
Although, you should be able to play beginners in less than 5 losses.
A new account loses 100s of points every loss. You'd be rated 500-800 very quickly.
If beginners are frustrated due to games, it's probably because they beat their cousin once and thought they were pretty good, so they go online only to find out they're beginners.
Notice that in the screenshot I just took, there are 78K people online with 8.4K joining in the last 24 hours.
So we can reasonably expect chess.com to double its active member less than 10 days from now right?
Riiiiiight?
lol
Only if every single new member stays online 24/7. Not likely. 
Of those new accounts, some are people who spend a few minutes on the site and then leave, never to return. Some are returning trolls and cheaters who will get banned within a few days. Some will stick around for a few days to a few months before getting bored and going away. Some will come on and play a game once or twice a month. Even of those who stick around, only a small percentage will be online every day. And of those who are online every day, only a small percentage will be online at any one time.
Additionally, long-term members will go inactive for various reasons - switching to another site, getting bored with chess, disputes with staff or another member, getting banned for violating site rules, dying, etc.
If you want to see how that number has trended over time, you could look at the Internet Archive: https://web.archive.org/web/*/https://www.chess.com/
For example, on December 4th, 2009: https://web.archive.org/web/20091204034409/https://www.chess.com/. There were 900K members, 2,674 of them online, and 1561 in the live server.
December 31, 2015: https://web.archive.org/web/20151231095721/https://www.chess.com/
13.4M members, 35K online.
February 25, 2017: https://web.archive.org/web/20170225030744/https://www.chess.com/
16.8M members, 41K online.
Today: 23.3M members, 76K online.
Now, to accurately measure the trend, you'd need to measure averages over time, rather than just cherry-picking a few snapshots. However, the differences are dramatic enough that the overall trend is pretty clear.
When will it exceed the population of Earth?
Notice that in the screenshot I just took, there are 78K people online with 8.4K joining in the last 24 hours.
So we can reasonably expect chess.com to double its active member less than 10 days from now right?
Riiiiiight?
lol
Only if every single new member stays online 24/7. Not likely.
Of those new accounts, some are people who spend a few minutes on the site and then leave, never to return. Some are returning trolls and cheaters who will get banned within a few days. Some will stick around for a few days to a few months before getting bored and going away. Some will come on and play a game once or twice a month. Even of those who stick around, only a small percentage will be online every day. And of those who are online every day, only a small percentage will be online at any one time.
Additionally, long-term members will go inactive for various reasons - switching to another site, getting bored with chess, disputes with staff or another member, getting banned for violating site rules, dying, etc.
If you want to see how that number has trended over time, you could look at the Internet Archive: https://web.archive.org/web/*/https://www.chess.com/
For example, on December 4th, 2009: https://web.archive.org/web/20091204034409/https://www.chess.com/. There were 900K members, 2,674 of them online, and 1561 in the live server.
December 31, 2015: https://web.archive.org/web/20151231095721/https://www.chess.com/
13.4M members, 35K online.
February 25, 2017: https://web.archive.org/web/20170225030744/https://www.chess.com/
16.8M members, 41K online.
Today: 23.3M members, 76K online.
Now, to accurately measure the trend, you'd need to measure averages over time, rather than just cherry-picking a few snapshots. However, the differences are dramatic enough that the overall trend is pretty clear.
Thanks, very interesting. I'm familiar with the wayback site, but didn't think to use it to check these numbers.
When will it exceed the population of Earth?
If they keep adding 10K a day, it will take longer than 2000 years to exceed present day population.
A random, computer generated number every day, between limits. The chances it's true can probably be worked out to be about one in 1,000,0000,000.
I'd say 9500 of those are duplicate sandbagging accounts. Not even joking
But the number of people logged on and number of games in live chess stays steady.
So where are these thousands of accounts who never log in coming from? People accidentally clicking some Facebook popup that links their account to chess.com or what?