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How Quora died

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Re: How Quora died

#81

Post by telesilla »

conductr wrote: post #63
matsemann wrote: post #4

When 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 not sure what their business model is, I assume ads, so I always wonder what good the login wall does and making the UX so horrible. I too only ever get there from a Google search too, much like Wikipedia, but with Wikipedia I’m usually going to make a few clicks once I’m there as the related link exploration is natural. I assume quora could get more clicks out of me if it wasn’t so awful. They’ve instead taught…

>I’m not sure what their business model is

Probably also email harvesting and any associated segmentation they get with your reading history, since it's required to sign up to read anything.

Re: How Quora died

#82

Post by oxfordmale »

asveikau wrote: post #41
ethbr1 wrote: post #7

If 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…

> 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 great for non political, non-controversial topics, such as sciences. I wouldn't trust it on active politicians or other figures of public interest.

One major problem is that you need to submit references to back up any claim. PR companies can easily buy an article in a fringe news site and them modify Wikipedia with a reference to that article. It is almost impossible to roll back.

I once tried to update a company page to state they were going through redundancies. I was personally affected by this, and had internal emails to back this up. However, lacking a public reference it was rolled back.

Re: How Quora died

#83

Post by [deleted] »

seadan83 wrote: post #60
ivanmontillam wrote: post #40

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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/

Interesting reference. Non profits cannot hoard money. I believe it becomes taxable and they can lose their non profit status (i am not an expert) Though, hoarding seems like a mischaracterization. Per the article linked, the cash burn rate is on the order of $100M/yr, having $150M in the bank is 18 months worth of funding. The biggest gripe I read in the article is the "high" expenditure rate and how necessary it is…

[deleted]

Re: How Quora died

#84

Post by mannyv »

Once they started monetizing things got worse. Financial incentives led to people gaming the site, which always leads to crap content.

You need a low barrier to entry to get free content, but then that makes it easy to pump full of crap. But you need that content to get users and monetization .

Quora has handled that much worse than, say, reddit. But reddit doesn't allow their users to monetize their content, which keeps the spammers at bay.

Re: How Quora died

#85

Post by nonrandomstring »

obernard wrote: post #51
nonrandomstring wrote: post #42

Earlier 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.

Yes I absolutely do agree with that.

Designers and product managers may completely ignore people like me, trample all over our needs and ignore us. Why would they care about the one percent. All good luck power to them and their values.

But I am also not the least bit concerned with whether their products are a success or not. Why would I care if they do not?

Yet I cannot concur that "almost every" site does. No, there are some that do. Moreover, those sites seem to self curate as being of very good quality. So I am happy that there are thoughtful, intelligent people out there who "get it". When they stop, so do I, and just move on. It's not personal and I'm not invested in them.

Re: How Quora died

#86

Post by [deleted] »

nottorp wrote: post #9

Don't blame LLMs, blame the registration requirement. This is one of the kinds of product that people will skip if they can't evaluate it frictionless.

[deleted]

Re: How Quora died

#87

Post by nonrandomstring »

CamperBob2 wrote: post #76
obernard wrote: post #51

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

And yet here I am, the annoying fly in the ointment of your hypothesis, no?

Re: How Quora died

#88

Post by hot_gril »

indigoabstract wrote: post #14

Quora seems pure clickbait at this point. Unfortunately, because it didn't start that way, now anything still relevant on that site is burried under the weight of the nonsense.

I get random emails from them about "popular" questions like "why has Javascript replaced C++?" Seems like ragebait.

Re: How Quora died

#89

Post by mjamesk »

I don't think it died. I get answers from Quora or Reddit for most of my questions. Nowadays, Google is also pushing forum websites.

The amount of questions being asked and answered is drastically reduced after GPT. So as a platform, it has died but still has the same amount of reach. They integrated AI. We have to see where this heads.

Re: How Quora died

#90

Post by nottorp »

nonrandomstring wrote: post #42
Wistar wrote: post #12

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This is what always stops me at quora’s door.

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…

Hmm I was going to say something about Stallman-like fanaticism, but then I remembered Stallman proved to be mostly right...
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