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-...

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_aavaa_ 2 hours ago | parent | next [-]

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.

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jeanlucas 44 minutes ago | parent | next [-]

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

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Jtarii an hour ago | parent | prev [-]

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

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guiambros 22 minutes ago | parent [-]

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.

	▲	Jtarii 5 minutes ago \| parent [-]
		If stack overflow was universally loved, AI would still kill it. People here seem to be so emotionally invested in hating stack overflow that they seem to think AI was like ~10% of the reason it died, when it was 95%.

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SkiFreeWin3 2 hours ago | parent | prev | next [-]

This is the more valuable take. AI simply accelerated an existing condition.

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danparsonson 38 minutes ago | parent | prev [-]

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