Earlier quoted context omitted.
I suspect I'm similar to many users, in that I came to Stack Overflow near the peak, and used it as basically a specialized search engine, without ever asking or answering a question. (I assume this is possible only if you use a widespread stack.) When something better came along, I just moved on. I hadn't directly experienced a sense of community, so I experienced (for example) bureaucratically-closed questions more…
As someone who came into the industry in college, the problem with SO was simply that it was too hard to ask a question. They were up your ass about minutia that really didn't matter. Good riddance and can't wait to visit the site and see an EOL static page.
Well said. It was just something I (and I'm guessing other software devs) put up with because that was the only option. The "ask a question" button was radioactive to me having seen the kind of dogpiling onto people who were asking clearly relevant questions but breaking imaginary rules.
Plus with how much "reputation" early users had amassed just for asking basic questions constituting low hanging fruit, there was no way for any new participant to get enough rep or whatever to begin contributing back to the community. IMO they pioneered the first K-shaped economy.
I felt a little bad when I saw the graph of their traffic fall precipitously, just to be replaced with schadenfreude with the insane takes of their community moderators blaming everything but the culture they'd cultivated ("less questions is actually good, because that's the goal of SO").
In short, I'm eagerly awaiting the death of that rotten place.