No More Yahoos?

First, Yahoo shut down its comic section -- I think it was around the beginning of the year. I used to spend about five minutes a day reading my favorites and saving the occasional comic that had something to do with chess. Over the years it amounted to several dozen saved comics, many of them having to do with politics (usually someone playing chess vs. someone playing checkers). The last non-political comic I have on file is shown below.

In the Bleachers, 22 March 2015

Then Yahoo shut down its news carrousel. I'm not even sure if 'carrousel' is the right word for the technique. The last example I used on this blog was shown in Chess Is Awesome (September 2015). While the Yahoo news page still exists, it looks like I'll be limited to the basic Yahoo attention-grabbing lead shown in Thousands of Comments (January 2016).

Then I learned that Yahoo had shut down its game section: Yahoo Games Has Passed Away at Just 17 (wired.com).

Yahoo Games, the once-hopping online game hub best known for its simulacrum of classic board and card games, is shutting down. The news was buried amidst major changes for the company: As we reported Tuesday [see link], Yahoo will lay off roughly 15 percent of the company, downsize across the board, and shutter many offerings, including its TV efforts.

Why did the company shut down the games?

Its decline was inevitable as the niche it filled moved to the mobile market, and as Yahoo itself became less central to the modern internet. Now, Yahoo Games is largely forgotten.

Many years ago I reviewed the chess area of Yahoo Games in General Game Sites (October 2003; archive.org -> chess.about.com); 'A trio of well known sites offers you 24/7 chess play plus many other games'. A few months later I compared it to its peers in Online Chess Play Sites V (January 2004; ditto); 'The fifth in a series of online play articles compares 11 sites'.

At that time I gave Yahoo chess three stars out of four, calculated that it attracted 44% of online chess players (this was a few years before the advent of Chess.com), and noted, 'Good starter site'. I received more comments about the Yahoo review than about any of the ten other online chess play sites, most of the comments disagreeing with my assessment and giving thumbs-down to Yahoo. I haven't been back to the site since the time I did that survey, but I'm still somewhat downhearted to hear of its demise. Where do mobile players go to play chess now?