The popular daily puzzle is now seemingly an exclusive for NYT Games subscribers.
There’s a tweet from early 2021 I think about more often than I should think about any tweet not written by dril, because it really does feel like it speaks to The Times We’re Living In: « Trying to explain to my parents (very gently) that basically nobody under 40 right now expects good things to happen ever again. » Overly broad? Sure: For one thing, this gloomy outlook couldn’t account for the invention of beloved puzzle game Wordle just seven months later, which has made many people happy for up to several seconds at a time.
But on a long enough timeline I’d say it proves out, because the endless march of enshittification guaranteed the New York Times would buy Wordle and eventually slap ads on it, and slowly leverage its growing empire of pleasant daily puzzles into a multi-million dollar profit scheme. We arrive now to the horrible present: The Mini crossword, most frivolous and innocent of all the NYT Games puzzles, is now, without warning, stuck behind the subscriber paywall.
« Miserable buggers. It was tiny and not particularly great, but it was something in this godforsaken capitalist hellscape », mourns one soulful member of r/crosswords, where Redditors have been coming to terms with the sudden change.
