Quora is a good example of how artificial scarcity goes wrong.
If you're not restrictive enough, you can't make a profit.
But if too restrictive, then the business will starve itself.
When it becomes too restrictive/extractive over time you have enshittification.
How Quora died
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Re: How Quora died
#72Earlier quoted context omitted.
How about Wikimedia?
Wikimedia is a non-profit that operates like a for-profit when the yearly round of donations comes around. They literally hoard money[0]. I will get downvoted for this, but it's my perception. -- [0]: https://www.makeuseof.com/tag/wikipedia-millions-bank-beg/
I'm fine with that.
Re: How Quora died
#73If your core business product is content contributed by users... I'm turning to the opinion that you need a C-level ombudsman- / dean of contributors-type role. Whose sole job it is to (1) figure out what contributors are thinking and want & (2) advocate for them inside the company. Every contributor-driven platform has eventually jumped the shark, and all in exactly the same way. Management begins to take contributi…
What would be a platform that is NOT contributor-driven ??
Re: How Quora died
#74When I visit Quora, mainly through it being a result for something I've searched for on Google, I can never quite understand what's the question, the answer, and what's an answer to something completely different. So I've never felt compelled to stay or join myself. Also, for a while I just hit a login wall, which of course makes you not click a link there the next time.
There's a toggle on top left that's by default set to "all related", as in answers to the question asked + a bunch of answers to things you're definitely not looking for, but are tangentially related. If you switch the toggle to "answers", you only get answers to the question.
I occasionally visit quora off of search results because I kinda got used to parsing out what I wanted, but never knew about this toggle.
I literally cannot understand how anyone thought intermixing related questions and answers together is in any way useful or beneficial to their users, especially when the default is set to ON.
Re: How Quora died
#75Seems like every time I land on Quora it's just a bunch of people bragging about their IQs while simultaneously lambasting neo Nazis, all while missing the juicy irony of their entire worldview.
I avoid Quora.
Re: How Quora died
#76Earlier quoted context omitted.
Me too. I've a simple but strict set of security rules for whether I'll use a website. - it does not want to run javascript - that I can access it over Tor without being blocked - that it will work in a text based browser like elinks Despite the protestations by idealogues that no such sites exist, HN meets all those requirements, as do dozens of useful sites I regularly use. If and only if I get to evaluate the qual…
You must agree that for almost every web-based product, designers and product managers can safely decide to completely ignore all people who have requirements like yours without it ever affecting their success.
Not only can they ignore such users, they have to.
Re: How Quora died
#77Earlier quoted context omitted.
> Every contributor-driven platform has eventually jumped the shark, and all in exactly the same way. Do you think Wikipedia has jumped the shark? Obviously not perfect, but it's certainly a lot better than Quora in terms of accuracy. It's been around for a very long time and it doesn't seem to me like quality has decreased. Edit: to be clear and re-iterate, I never said Wikipedia was perfect, just that it has a cert…
Wikipedia is in the business of paying secret writers for content to sway opinions, politically. Of course they have jumped the shark, they’re basically working for agencies.
Re: How Quora died
#78Not only Quora, but many other sites including the various "stackexchange" sites started declining I would say from about 2018, so this is not a phenomenon attributed to llms. IMHO I attribute this to the following: a) The overuse of social media conditioning users to provide short answers, rather than long thoughtful write-ups, b) Most topics have been saturated to the limit c) lack of interest from the new generati…
I think stack exchange’s moderators killed that site. Common complaints were how antagonistic they were toward new users. Hard to grow or sustain a user base if you turn out all the new ones.
Re: How Quora died
#79When I visit Quora, mainly through it being a result for something I've searched for on Google, I can never quite understand what's the question, the answer, and what's an answer to something completely different. So I've never felt compelled to stay or join myself. Also, for a while I just hit a login wall, which of course makes you not click a link there the next time.
I’m pretty sure this is the result of a heavy A/B testing culture. Every single idea was probably increasing an important KPI. The page in it’s entirety got destroyed over time.
Re: How Quora died
#80Tangentially related, since the CEO of Quora is on OpenAI's board. I recently had an interaction w/ OpenAI's community that left a sour taste in my mouth. Asked one question, some smarty guy tried to "XY problem" me, I clarified this is not an "XY problem" and my question is quite clear and specific and eventually one mod was involved, other mods ganged up on me and removed all my posts because "they were violating g…
GitHub Copilot must be trained on all those XY answers and can be just as insufferable.