Charlie Warzel talking about Wordle in Galaxy Brain:

Wordle’s success has scrambled the brains of people in tech who have a reflexive desire to monetize things that are popular.

What if I just want to do a thing because I like doing it. Not everything has to be sold, marketed and developed to a stage where i hate it. I just want a past time that I enjoy doing and sometimes it even costs me money! Take writing for example every platform now wants me to market it, sell it and build a brand when that is not what I want to do at all.

the fact that the game is immensely popular suggests to me that maybe, just maybe, there’s a quorum of people who are tired of things that feel extractive

Subscription fatigue is one thing but you can tell when things are trying to get things from you to fund it. Data, attention, or just setting you up for the payment hit later on. It feels exploitive and you can small it in the air from the start.