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Comment by jeanlucas

12 hours ago

I don't have the time to, but I'm surprised there aren't a lot of comments on the decline before chatGPT was released, but after SO was sold to Prosus [1][2]

Even the curious growth spike in activity happened just before the acquisition. I wish I had time to do this analysis a bit deeper, but you can look for SO activity up until when chatGPT was released, it is really noticeable.

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[1] Stack Overflow acquired by Prosus for $1.8 billion: https://techcrunch.com/2021/06/02/stack-overflow-acquired-by...

[2] Prosus to acquire Stack Overflow for US$1.8 billion https://www.prosus.com/news-insights/2021/prosus-to-acquire-...

11 comments

jeanlucas

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_aavaa_  12 hours ago

I don’t think we need to blame that sale. The same steady decline had been going since 2016. Itms clearly there in the graph, but everyone trumpeting the ChatGPT angle conveniently ignores the preceding 5+ years of continual decline.

  • jeanlucas  10 hours ago

    The sale is relevant. The spike in activity right before the sale already shows the management hand and how they actively ran the org to optimize for this sale. The rebound right after is hard, and it was (right) before chatgpt

    They accelerated the downfall with this and then chatgpt came over

    • _aavaa_  8 hours ago

      Are we talking about the large Covid spike in early 2020? I don’t think that has anything to do with the sale.

  • Jtarii  11 hours ago

    So you think its mostly just coincidence that 4 years after AI is introduced stack overflow is dead?

    • guiambros  10 hours ago

      No, of course not coincidence. It's just that people didn't have an alternative until 2021-ish. Users hated SO for many years prior, but had nowhere to go other than small niche communities. When LLMs came into play, it was just the obvious choice.

      In an alternate universe, where LLMs didn't exist, I bet you SO would be equally dead by this decade. Someone better, with healthier values and a more welcoming community, would come up and steal their lunch.

      2 replies →

  • cubefox  8 hours ago

    Everyone trumpeting the "bad SO moderation" angle is delusional. Stack Overflow was far better than conventional forums. Without LLMs, SO would have stayed popular, there is no doubt about it. The massive decline was clearly and obviously caused mainly by LLMs.

danparsonson  10 hours ago

Do you mean that curious growth spike in mid 2020? If so, can you think of anything else significant that happened in mid 2020...?