A lot of us Quorans were putting real insight there. Seriously. First few years was amazing.
As they wound down the top writer program, which is really where the "hits good" seeds are, they decided to pay people to ask questions.
Signal to noise ratio began to trend toward unfavorable. But traffic shot right up!
There have been other decisions contributing to the Quora we see today, but the paid questions really had the most impact in my view.
That said, yeah. There is still a lot of high value contributions to Quora. They are just a little harder to find now.
One thing I feel they missed the boat on was the credits system. Early on one could accumulate those and use them as a sort of currency. I "spent" some of my pile asking specific people for insight and it worked out well. I had others do the same with me.
Basically, one could get to a domain or subject expert and the site was still "family", so it would lead to a high value exchange.
For a little while, their text question UI hinted at what a Quora could be. Well connected Quorans could toss a question in via SMS and get solid responses back, sometimes quickly.
(Came down to follower counts, writer status, and a few other things)
These options were not abused much that I could tell and they hinted at a means to query people without draining said people, and or everyone participating having some give and take.
Was a fleeting moment, but one I ponder from time to time.
I would subscribe to a "group" that has the UX and overall dynamics of something like what I just described right.