Re: “The Pulse #134: Stack overflow is almost dead”

On 05/21/2025 04:40 AM, Sam wrote:

Lynn McGuire writes:
>

“The Pulse #134: Stack overflow is almost dead
   https://newsletter.pragmaticengineer.com/p/the-pulse-134
>
“Four months ago, we asked Are LLMs making Stack Overflow irrelevant?
Data at the time suggested that the answer is likely “yes:”
>
“June 2021: Stack Overflow sold for $1.8B to private equity investor,
Prosus. In hindsight, the founders – Jeff Atwood and Joel Spolsky –
sold with near-perfect timing, before terminal decline.
>
Unreal.

>
It's not the LLM or AI that made Stackoverflow jump the shark. They
simply failed to achieve sufficient mind share to be able to withstand
the natural factors that work to collapse every social media platform
that employs content moderation. Stackoverflow's content moderation
policies pissed off their most productive contributors, so they all
left, and there wasn't enough garbage left to support what's left behind.
>
If SO grew big enough before their loss of mindshare they might've had a
chance to carry on by inertia, as a steaming pile of flaming crap. Case
in point: Facebook. But they didn't. Goodbye.
>

Wow, Usenet is mostly dead, ..., news at 11.
The, "Stackoverflow Mafia" bit, or the moderatorrings,
provided that the format of curated Q & A is sort of good,
yet, is what it is.
The at-scale collusion, ....