Stack Overflow sold to Prosus for $1.8B • Hacker News Board

Re: Stack Overflow sold to Prosus for $1.8B

#11

Post by dested » Wed, Jun 02, 2021, 4:05 PM UTC

I always thought Microsoft would be a natural buyer given the tech stack and Microsoft's support for developers.

Unrelated story, I have a day one Stack Overflow account. I don't remember how I found it but I'm sure it was posted on digg or slashdot or something at the time. I had a lot of posts in the first few years about some generally broad concepts, and completely inactive since.

In spite of this, I am in the top 7% of accounts on the site, which is a nice reminder on the power of compound interest!

Re: Stack Overflow sold to Prosus for $1.8B

#12

Post by zwieback » Wed, Jun 02, 2021, 4:06 PM UTC

The consensus seems to be that SO has peaked some time ago although I still get a lot of value out of it.

Why then does nobody seems to think there's an upside to the acquisition? Maybe they can fix some of the problems.

Re: Stack Overflow sold to Prosus for $1.8B

#13

Post by YesThatTom2 » Wed, Jun 02, 2021, 4:06 PM UTC

yewenjie wrote: post #7

Oh no :( I hope there is a public archiving effort in case the posts get paywalled or something in future.

https://meta.stackexchange.com/questions/19579/where-are-the...

For pete's sake don't scrape what Stack provides for you in an easy to parse format.

Re: Stack Overflow sold to Prosus for $1.8B

#14

Post by robbyking » Wed, Jun 02, 2021, 4:06 PM UTC

falcolas wrote: post #3

That's unexpected. Then again, 1.8B is a lot of money for what I'm guessing is a small number of major shareholders. After seeing how Tencent purchased gaming companies have fared (that is, typically with few changes), this probably won't have much of a negative impact on the site.

I may be being a little more optimistic than some other people here, but I agree with you. There's a history of larger companies acquiring smaller ones only to ruin them (ahem, Yahoo), so hopefully Prosus understands what makes Stack Overflow so successful and will be mostly hands off. (Also, I'm not sure when Prosus acquired Udemy, but as far as I know that acquisition didn't negatively affect that site.)

Re: Stack Overflow sold to Prosus for $1.8B

#15

Post by [deleted] » Wed, Jun 02, 2021, 4:06 PM UTC

steve_adams_86 wrote: post #8

tanepiper wrote: post #4

You had a good run Stack Overflow - sad to see it die this way (because we know it all will)

I don’t want to seem like a jerk saying this, because I’ve put effort into supporting the site and helping with moderation, I know it’s all very challenging and difficult, but: I think stack overflow has been dead for a while. Maybe you and I wanted different things from it and you still find it useful, but I haven’t really enjoyed it for many years. I loved it over a decade ago, these days I generally avoid it. I wa…

[deleted]

Re: Stack Overflow sold to Prosus for $1.8B

#16

Post by [deleted] » Wed, Jun 02, 2021, 4:07 PM UTC

steve_adams_86 wrote: post #8

tanepiper wrote: post #4

You had a good run Stack Overflow - sad to see it die this way (because we know it all will)

I don’t want to seem like a jerk saying this, because I’ve put effort into supporting the site and helping with moderation, I know it’s all very challenging and difficult, but: I think stack overflow has been dead for a while. Maybe you and I wanted different things from it and you still find it useful, but I haven’t really enjoyed it for many years. I loved it over a decade ago, these days I generally avoid it. I wa…

[deleted]

Re: Stack Overflow sold to Prosus for $1.8B

#17

Post by gerikson » Wed, Jun 02, 2021, 4:07 PM UTC

dt3ft wrote: post #6

How much am I going to get for all the answers I posted? :) (Hint: not a dime)

Uh, you knew that going in, right? Aren't all answers CC0?

Re: Stack Overflow sold to Prosus for $1.8B

#18

Post by ibrahimsow1 » Wed, Jun 02, 2021, 4:07 PM UTC

falcolas wrote: post #3

That's unexpected. Then again, 1.8B is a lot of money for what I'm guessing is a small number of major shareholders. After seeing how Tencent purchased gaming companies have fared (that is, typically with few changes), this probably won't have much of a negative impact on the site.

They're south african and a huge holder in tencent. Edit: Memory failed me, the parent company is south african.

Re: Stack Overflow sold to Prosus for $1.8B

#19

Post by nly » Wed, Jun 02, 2021, 4:07 PM UTC

yewenjie wrote: post #7

Oh no :( I hope there is a public archiving effort in case the posts get paywalled or something in future.

I though it was already paywalled?

Re: Stack Overflow sold to Prosus for $1.8B

#20

Post by RandallBrown » Wed, Jun 02, 2021, 4:08 PM UTC

steve_adams_86 wrote: post #8

tanepiper wrote: post #4

You had a good run Stack Overflow - sad to see it die this way (because we know it all will)

I don’t want to seem like a jerk saying this, because I’ve put effort into supporting the site and helping with moderation, I know it’s all very challenging and difficult, but: I think stack overflow has been dead for a while. Maybe you and I wanted different things from it and you still find it useful, but I haven’t really enjoyed it for many years. I loved it over a decade ago, these days I generally avoid it. I wa…

The StackOverflow community has always been extremely abrasive. People will constantly be rewriting or deleting your questions or leaving unhelpful comments complaining about something silly like the formatting.

With that said, it's still extremely useful. It makes my job easier and saves me a ton of time.