> June 2020: questions start to decline, faster than before. Even though we did not know at the time, this was stilll two years from ChatGPT launching!
Looking at the graph, it actually looks to me that if we remove the covid spike of mid-2020, there's a very clean almost linear decline right from 2014 (when the dust settled from the change in moderation) all through to the launch of ChatGPT, where it went into a nosedive. Running this on the back of my envelope, StackOverflow would have reached 0 questions per month regardless of LLMs around 2035.
So the lesson for me here is more about how zealous moderation makes a platform better for its existing aging population, while discouraging new members.
> June 2020: questions start to decline, faster than before. Even though we did not know at the time, this was stilll two years from ChatGPT launching!
Looking at the graph, it actually looks to me that if we remove the covid spike of mid-2020, there's a very clean almost linear decline right from 2014 (when the dust settled from the change in moderation) all through to the launch of ChatGPT, where it went into a nosedive. Running this on the back of my envelope, StackOverflow would have reached 0 questions per month regardless of LLMs around 2035.
So the lesson for me here is more about how zealous moderation makes a platform better for its existing aging population, while discouraging new members.