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How Quora died

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Re: How Quora died

#351

Post by physicles »

scoofy wrote: post #248
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…

>Maybe make it harder for your company to footgun your golden goose? As someone who has started a "content contributed by users" website recently (golfcourse.wiki), I've thought long and hard about why the enshitification creep happens. I really think it happens because most of the people who start these businesses either need to take venture capital to survive, or are looking for a way to sell the business to retire…

Everyone is talking about enshittification these days, but hardly anyone is doing anything about it (including myself). Thanks for doing something about it. Do you have a blog post with your thoughts on monetization?

Re: How Quora died

#352

Post by e_y_ »

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…

I think the distribution requirement is specifically for private foundations, not public charities.

Re: How Quora died

#353

Post by j7ake »

Solvency wrote: post #332
bastawhiz wrote: post #327

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I think medium had the right idea but I don't think the business model was really solid. Substack got it right: people want to pay creators to write, not a company to broker access to creators. Instead of pivoting, they seemed to double down.

Why aren't science journals the same? Why do I still have to pay some middle man?

Because academics care more about which journal a paper is published in, rather than the content of the paper.

Re: How Quora died

#354

Post by slily »

latexr wrote: post #344
slily wrote: post #323

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Good to know a publicly-traded company known to censor content to be more advertiser-friendly and with notoriously predatory content discovery algorithms designed to elicit emotions to keep users coming is apparently not-for-profit if it happens to be unprofitable during the ZIRP period. Or is Facebook also not-for-profit? If anything, Musk is less profit-oriented. Someone looking to profit off the platform wouldn't…

> known to censor content to be more advertiser-friendly And now it’s know to censor content to be friendly to autocratic governments. https://www.vice.com/en/article/88xqnv/elon-musk-censors-twi...

Obviously your post has nothing to do with Twitter being for-profit before the acquisition and Musk prioritizing profit less than his predecessors, but I'll bite.

By complying with government regulations when displaying content in their respective regions to avoid getting the entire network banned there, right. While this hit piece from a notoriously biased outlet would like to equate this with ye olde Twitter's regular practice of of suppressing or deleting content worldwide at the whim of the US government, it's obviously more transparent and fair to comply with censorship locally and provide a reason for the missing content. Reeks of "it's okay when we do it".

Re: How Quora died

#355

Post by tomjakubowski »

meowtimemania wrote: post #244
throw__away7391 wrote: post #209

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I have no experience running a site centered on user generated content, but it seems to me that the biggest problem/threat to any of them is the people who start showing up once it gains traction and becomes more popular. Early users are a different band of the population, on every successful platform from StackOverflow to Uber they create a particular culture which is impossible to maintain as the general public arr…

In what way were early users of Uber different from the current users? Are you saying the drivers used to be better?

Not sure about what OP was saying but, for a brief time when Uber was still new, before UberX launched in mid-summer 2012, their only service was black cars. Drivers had limousine licenses, and were merely filling time in between other gigs they had booked traditionally.

Re: How Quora died

#356

Post by johnnyanmac »

Solvency wrote: post #332
bastawhiz wrote: post #327

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I think medium had the right idea but I don't think the business model was really solid. Substack got it right: people want to pay creators to write, not a company to broker access to creators. Instead of pivoting, they seemed to double down.

Why aren't science journals the same? Why do I still have to pay some middle man?

My high level speculation is curation. There actually is (or should be?) some sort of peer review system by people for that journal. That labor is valuable.

Also, simple grandfathering. I imagine once upon a time Science journals was a literal term. Easier to keep the same hook if your users were used to it in another medium.

Re: How Quora died

#357

Post by johnnyanmac »

anigbrowl wrote: post #290
meowtimemania wrote: post #244

Earlier quoted context omitted.

In what way were early users of Uber different from the current users? Are you saying the drivers used to be better?

A car ride isn't 'content'.

It can be. Have you been in cars that have small snacks, karaoke, or some other sort of entertainment setup?

Re: How Quora died

#358

Post by aaron695 »

plorkyeran wrote: post #168
username332211 wrote: post #44

So, the fourth paragraph of the article is supposed to demonstrate the decline of Quora. It has a number of links. One of those links shows a UI that's fairly obviously Reddit! [1] Another is to genius.com's lyrics to some song[2] which don't seem to have anything to do with anything the author's complaining about. Of the links actually relevant to Quora, one is about an obvious joke[3], which the author either doesn…

[3] is, as far as anyone can tell, an insane person and not a joke. They've posted literally hundreds of questions involving atheists, christian babies, and nonsensical situations.

[dead]

Re: How Quora died

#359

Post by johnnyanmac »

Karellen wrote: post #269
wonderfulcloud wrote: post #189

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Essentially any issue that relates to politics or geopolitics tends to have a strong left wing bias, as if it is written from the perspective of the left wing against the right wing.

Then again, reality has a well-known liberal bias. ;-)

At least, the internet does. Providing labor el gratis apparently goes against their purview, after all. But they sure will complain about free labor

Re: How Quora died

#360

Post by oneoff123 »

johnnyanmac wrote: post #356
Solvency wrote: post #332

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Why aren't science journals the same? Why do I still have to pay some middle man?

My high level speculation is curation. There actually is (or should be?) some sort of peer review system by people for that journal. That labor is valuable. Also, simple grandfathering. I imagine once upon a time Science journals was a literal term. Easier to keep the same hook if your users were used to it in another medium.

There was a time when it made sense to have both done by the same entity. Time for a devorce. One does the work the other collects the reward??
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