SO has lost against LLMs because it has insistently positioned itself as a knowledge base rather than a community. The harsh moderation, strict content policing, forbidden socialization, lack of follow mechanics etc have all collectively contributed to it.

They basically made a bet because they wanted to be the full anti-thesis of ad-ridden garbage-looking forums. Pure information, zero tolerance for humanity, sterile looking design.

They achieved that goal, but in the end, they dug their own grave too.

LLMs didn’t admonish us to write our questions better, or simply because we asked for an opinion. They didn’t flag, remove our post with no advance notice. They didn’t forbid to say hello or thanks, they welcomed it. They didn’t complain when we asked something that was asked many times. They didn’t prevent us from deleting our own content.

Oh yeah, no wonder nobody bothers with SO anymore.

It’s a good lesson for the future.