Are There Any Free Chess Servers Online Besides Lichess and Chess.com?

Why all chess servers have a paid wall? Is it really that profitable? Maybe yes Chess.com makes millions I am sure. But then all servers except chess.com and lichess are gone.

I am exploring alternatives I came across,

chess.net
chess24.com (Gone)?
kasparovchess.com (what in the world?)
rustypawn.com (interesting)
redhotpawn.com (Hmm I dig it.)

Let me know if you know other servers? Also free the better!

well it seems no one knows of any others.

@is_impossible

I used to play on chess.org before I discovered lichess. It's not a bad site but lacking in features. It's good if you just want to play chess.

Chess24 was part of PMG that was acquired by chess.com , it's gone.

FICS www.freechess.org should still be alive, it's free.
ICC www.chessclub.com did some rebranding, I think it's sort of freemium like chess.com now. I don't know, someone else may weigh in on this.
There was also gameknot.com , I think it was correspondence like.

I think playchess.com is better than chess.com. playchess if you don't know is part of the chessbase empire

chessworld.net is my favorite for correspondence chess.

@fwh2025c @bufferunderrun indeed although it seems those others are obsolete. Some new comers are great like rustypawn.com and gameknot can be fun sometimes. But icc is dead behind a paid wall and FICS is almost dead as well.

there are plenty of gaming sites offering loads of different games including chess.
www.playok.com/
www.flyordie.com/

Though dedicates sites tend to have more players attending.

fics still seems to exist, but never anyone on there to play. I found a babas chess client recently on an old pc and was able to log into it, but noone to play ! You have to be quite old to remember fics !!

chess24