Yes. In the beginning they didn't ban opinion based posts (that's why you can still find some of them that were left up for "historical value").

I liked Joel on Software, I liked Coding Horror, and I liked the idea that two internet guys could just identify a problem like that, start a company and fix it.

There was a Goldilocks period of several years where contributing answers was fun. I joined in 2010 and was most active until about 2016. It felt good to help people and since it was in the open, it felt like a resume booster as well, like having an active GitHub profile.