I think so too, but many people have many oppositions to AI and would prefer knowledge to be in the hands of knowledgeable community, rather than AI companies. SO was poised to be this alternative, but leadership showed they did not see value in knowledge-work for its own sake.

But SO had already been acquired by PE when LLMs went mainstream, so I doubt they would have made any strategic growth bets rather than trying to squeeze all the monetization they could out of the site.