logoalt Hacker News

cowlevel • today at 12:37 AM • 7 replies • view on HN

You're underselling it. It's less than in their second month of existence - and that has been true every month for the past year. For the last few months it's also lower than their first month. Stack Overflow, effectively, no longer exists.

And we know why. It's because of their hostile attitude towards their users.

No doubt they'll continue operating until there's no more value in selling AI data licenses, then they'll unplug the servers and unregister the business.


Replies

Pet_Ant • today at 1:03 AM

> And we know why. It's because of their hostile attitude towards their users.

That’s why it succeeded. It was not a forum, it was something new. Contribute a new question that was well stated and broadly applicable and get a response. You had to earn your answers.

It wasn’t flawless, but it was good and so good it fed all the AI agents with good materials.

It wasn’t a “help me!!!111!” site, it was an exchange.

I put lots of effort into narrowing my questions, eliminating obvious answers by demonstrating the work I put in, and editted all my questions like an email to my boss. I was almost always rewarded with good answers.

➕ show 6 replies
NichoPaolucci • today at 12:40 AM

Well, the community never made it a very welcoming place... But, I think a part of this is that it's just faster to throw a Q into ChatGPT. There's no waiting for a response, a major bonus is the non-hostility + willingness to respond to 'stupid' questions.

giancarlostoro • today at 2:00 AM

> And we know why. It's because of their hostile attitude towards their users.

That and [redacted] mods who delete your question “because its a duplicate” but its not, you just assume it is and lock it. Lots of this when .NET Core came out and it drove me up a wall. Wouldnt surprise me if a lot of “hallucination” type answers come from bad Stack Overflow data being interpreted as “fact” in earlier models.

lossolo • today at 12:56 AM

> And we know why. It's because of their hostile attitude towards their users.

I used SO almost every day until capable LLMs showed up. I don't remember the last time I used it. SO and similar sites are dead, and LLMs killed them.

➕ show 2 replies
p-e-w • today at 12:45 AM

> And we know why. It's because of their hostile attitude towards their users.

Uh, no.

StackOverflow is and has long been one of the most hostile places on the web, I’m not denying that. But this unprecedented drop in activity is 100% because of AI. Their product is as obsolete as horse-drawn carriages.

➕ show 7 replies
ransom1538 • today at 1:58 AM

[flagged]

medellin • today at 12:56 AM

HN really this dense? It was hostility towards users… my god

➕ show 4 replies