There was some of that for sure; sites that were all but designed to be attractive nuisances and took near-heroic efforts to moderate at all, with little chance of not causing a lot of drama.

OTOH, topic-specific sites like Mathematics, MathOverflow, Physics, even small ones like Home Improvement or Seasoned Advice... Managed to collect a lot of good stuff: common niche questions with good answers that have a good chance at staying relevant for a long time to come.

In a sane world, a few relevant ads on these sites would be enough to fund them for decades. But that appears to be another area where Google kinda shit the bed.