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Stack Overflow sold to Prosus for $1.8B

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Re: Stack Overflow sold to Prosus for $1.8B

#161

Post by EMM_386 »

dested wrote: post #11

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 to…

> 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!

That's how I'm in the top 5%.

My old posts that are still relevant get votes. Every time I log in there is a new notification about how many more points I have.

Re: Stack Overflow sold to Prosus for $1.8B

#162

Post by bena »

oezi wrote: post #119
bena wrote: post #49

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The problem with StackOverflow or any "community-driven" effort is that every single community is driven by those who dedicate the most time to driving the community. In the beginning, this isn't largely a problem because the owners of the site can manage the load. Then as the site gets marginally bigger, you can trust on volunteers who have demonstrated expertise or something. But eventually, skilled people will get…

I think this is an incorrect assessment. The value doesn't come from those that dedicate most of their time. The value comes from the sites ability to integrate the long tail both for answers and questions. Certainly it is valuable to have the super star posters with a million reputation. But the site was build by random people answering random questions. I also don't believe in the value of "community management" at…

Who are the most capable of answering random questions? Those who have the most time to do so.

Who are the the most likely to answer random questions? Those who have the most time to do so.

Who doesn't mind providing free "senseless busywork"? Those whose time has little to no value because they have so much of it.

My account on SO is 12 years and 9 months old and even though I haven't asked or answered a question since 2009, I'm still in the top 10% of reputation. Because in those early months/years, it wasn't difficult to garner reputation.

I just don't have the time to troll questions to answer on SO. As for asking, either the answer already exists, or I can find out by reading the documentation. And deity-forbid I'd pull the answer-my-own-question-to-document-the-solution that used to be the recommended way of just getting content on the site.

Re: Stack Overflow sold to Prosus for $1.8B

#163

Post by mitchdoogle »

cheschire wrote: post #76
romanovcode wrote: post #66

Let's just hope there will be no "Pay to see the answer" thing happening like this one website experts exchange or whatever it was called.

For the first couple months I couldn’t shake this feeling I was looking at a shady site. Then one day it dawned on me I had been subconsciously reading “expert sex change” the whole time. Terrible domain choice.

This comment reminds me of those kids in middle school who would tell you to write, "pen 15" on a piece of paper and then laugh like crazy when you did because it resembles the word "penis".

Re: Stack Overflow sold to Prosus for $1.8B

#164

Post by polynomial »

eric_b wrote: post #64

I find parallels between Stack Overflow and Mozilla. Both started with fairly focused products that were best in class. The user base grew and the network effect multiplied. Both were started and largely staffed by engineers. Then both companies started focusing on "bigger", more ambiguous goals. Their about pages are riddled with the latest marketing-speak: Authentically empowering dignity, community, and inclusivit…

TBF, the notion of community at least started off as more than marketing speak or social justice trend chasing. Arguably, it is a substantive basis of our inter-networked connectedness, even if it was later assimilated by the same marketing machinery that also spits outs empty (but apparently effective) buzzwords.

Re: Stack Overflow sold to Prosus for $1.8B

#165

Post by eric_b »

jsterSC wrote: post #130
eric_b wrote: post #64

I find parallels between Stack Overflow and Mozilla. Both started with fairly focused products that were best in class. The user base grew and the network effect multiplied. Both were started and largely staffed by engineers. Then both companies started focusing on "bigger", more ambiguous goals. Their about pages are riddled with the latest marketing-speak: Authentically empowering dignity, community, and inclusivit…

>The honeyed words of social justice are more important than great, well executed products, apparently. I like how all the other comments are pointing out that the forces behind an acquisition are never good for 'focused products' and then there's this comment that shows us the truth, it's those damn kids and their social justice that ruins the products.

Well, since you're being deliberately obtuse - I'll expound.

My point is that these companies are moving focus away from the products that got them to where they are, to a set of vague handwavy concepts that are completely unquantifiable. And, in my experience anyways, this usually comes at a cost to the existing products.

Re: Stack Overflow sold to Prosus for $1.8B

#167

Post by toyg »

AbrahamParangi wrote: post #118
yaitsyaboi wrote: post #99

Everyone is saying how 1.8B is a ton, but I’m kinda surprised that it’s “barely” more than the Depop acquisition today at 1.6B.

Stack overflow is probably responsible for increasing global developer productivity by maybe ~1000x the acquisition price. In a sense it’s a tragedy of the commons.

Why must it be a tragedy? The owners were well-compensated. Shouldn't we celebrate instead the amazing result/effort ratio one can achieve these days with a basic website...? SO was notoriously and pragmatically simple.

Re: Stack Overflow sold to Prosus for $1.8B

#168

Post by bronson »

tomp wrote: post #108
nostrademons wrote: post #98

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Way back in 2008, Google had a feature called SearchWiki that let you X-out or upvote search results. It was little used, but apparently the most frequent usage was to delete ExpertsExchange results. IIRC we ended up making some changes to webspam that resulted in ExpertsExchange links falling off the front page, and then SearchWiki was unlaunched because it was no longer necessary.

I’m dying to have that feature again. I just want to downvote/remove W3Cschools and upvote MDN.

You'd probably also downvote all the pay-for-placement results on Google's search page now. That would lead to some difficult questions.

Re: Stack Overflow sold to Prosus for $1.8B

#169

Post by croes »

bigdict wrote: post #131
croes wrote: post #124

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Ever heard of survivorship bias?

Yeah but why do those who survive survive?

You know that old scammer trick? Pick 512 wealthy people, pick a stock, write half of the the people the stock will rise, the other half the stock will fall. Wait for the real development, dump the addresses of the losers, pick a new stock and start again. Write one half stock will rise, other half, stock will fall. Repeat until only one address is left. Now give him the opportunity of an large investment. You have shown your skills because you were right 10 times in a row.

Re: Stack Overflow sold to Prosus for $1.8B

#170

Post by ytNumbers »

femiagbabiaka wrote: post #144
bigdict wrote: post #131

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Yeah but why do those who survive survive?

Mostly luck.

To quote Mazarin, "One must not ask of a general, 'Is he skillful?', but rather, 'Is he lucky?'". I think what Mazarin was probably getting at was that the best generals will always have others claiming that their success was due to luck.
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