Current state of chess.com (Jan2023) and other websites

Most of the changes are behind the scenes and will take time to show clearly. Even then, the difference should basically be no more database overload message, or at least much rarer, if at all.

A few months ago Levy and Hikaru both had a little over 1 million subs on Youtube.

Right now Hikaru has 1.6 million and Levy has 2.6 million... an enormous increase.

Chess.com is among the top free games in the app store.

https://apps.apple.com/us/charts/iphone

I'm not whining or complaining, and I plan to be patient and stick around, playing daily games until I'm confident enough to play rapid......

But I don't understand this:

Most of the changes are behind the scenes and will take time to show clearly. Even then, the difference should basically be no more database overload message, or at least much rarer, if at all.

Of course the changes are "behind the scenes". What else would they be? But why is no one specifying anything about the nature of those changes? What are they? Why should we trust that they'll get this handled? Chess.com is not the first business to experience an explosive surge in demand. And I repeat..... I don't see what they're doing to remedy the problem. 

There are so many of these topics that it's hard to remember which have been given this link

https://www.chess.com/blog/CHESScom/chess-is-booming-and-our-servers-are-struggling

Thanks.....I'll continue to be patient....and hopeful. Not going anywhere. 

there is one iconic player on lichess with that username, chesscomispaytowin ha

anyways yeah the crashes are annoying which make lichess somewhat preferable if you want to be playing chess and not feeling upset but besides that i like both. the site is getting better than ever and the speed from games are very smooth on chess.com and lichess which is pretty cool. overall i really feel like both are having merits and while lichess may rarely crash it still isn't like incredibly better as there will always be a lot of coolness between the two as brothers lol

Try it and see whether that helps your rating. Let the community know.

Strangely was reminded of this.

For no particular reason of course 

Zactly!

Basically the site is working on optimizations that will improve database performance (decrease load) and adding systems to spread load to additional systems to ease loads on existing systems. 

From a member perspective, a decrease, if not elimination of, 502/ database load messages should occur. That should, in theory, also improve overall performance of the site, even with the higher traffic. 

From optimizing load performance to loading database optimizations, no one gives load optimizing database performances like you do.

In theory, the additional system performance optimizations will improve higher traffic elimination by decreasing, if not eliminating databasation.

Consult your doctor before attempting to increase load performance.
Database optimizations are not intended for use by anyone under the age of 18.
If your performance enhancement lasts for more than 4 hours, look at a picture of Danny.

hahahaha

There are pros and cons for both of them, along with other platforms as well, such as shredderchess.net , freechess.org , etc.

You can use one platform, then try another. After all, the target is to be better at chess, so choose which platform(s) you'll be (personally) suitable in.

If you've only experienced it a week, you've either been on during off-peak times or only been here a week. This was posted on January 11th and the load started before then.

I am a user of both chess.com and lichess. I like them both; in some features I prefer the former, in others the latter, but for me they are roughly equivalent.

I am grateful to both of them for the possibility they offer to cultivate my passion. Someone may prefer the first or the second, and any reason is good, but in any case I don't think anyone can prove that one of the two is better than the other, despite all the efforts he can make. Which is the "best" depends on the needs and preferences of each of us. 

What January 2022 link?

That link? That's just a year trend from Google on Chess and shows that in general that it was growing slowly in popularity, with a bump in the Summer, and a much bigger jump at the end of the year.