When you search programming-related questions, what sites do you normally read? For me, it is hard to avoid SO because it appears in so many top results from Google. And I swear that Google AI just regugitates most of SO these days for simple questions.
Instead of running a google query or searching in Stackoverflow you just need a chatGPT, Claude or your Ai of choice open in a browser. Copy and paste.
But the killer feature of an LLM is that it can synthesize something based on my exact ask, and does a great job of creating a PoC to prove something, and it's cheap from time investment point of view.
And it doesn't downvote something as off-topic, or try to use my question as a teaching exercise and tell me I'm doing it wrong, even if I am ;)
There were more problems. And that's from the point of view of somebody coming from Google to find questions that already existed. Interacting there was another entire can of worms.
Stack Overflow’s moderation is overbearing and all, but that’s nowhere near at the same level as Expert Exchange’s baiting and switching
SO was never that bad, even with all their moderation policies, they had no paywalls.