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Stack Overflow sold to Prosus for $1.8B

wsj.com

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Re: Stack Overflow sold to Prosus for $1.8B

#511

Post by throwaway894345 »

pishpash wrote: post #411
throwaway894345 wrote: post #251

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Sure, GH lags SO considerably on the size of the knowledge base, but I don't think that's very important since, due to the rapid pace of tech, content rapidly loses value with age (consider all of the jquery or flash content, or content pertaining to old versions of libraries or frameworks). What matters more is the rate at which content is generated, and I think GH has a pretty competitive story considering that peo…

Is it just Stack Overflow or Stack Exchange over all? If the latter, that's a lot more content that doesn't expire that quickly.

Right, but MS probably isn't interested in that content for its software dev portfolio.

Re: Stack Overflow sold to Prosus for $1.8B

#512

Post by scandinavian »

polynomial wrote: post #472
sjclemmy wrote: post #346

Fun fact and one of my dinner party anecdotes; I have the accepted answer for one of Ross Ulbricht’s (Silk Road’s Dread Pirate Roberts) SO questions that got him busted. https://stackoverflow.com/questions/9563675/destroying-a-spe...

Where did his 3,675 reputation come from? He only asked 2 questions and has a small number of badges.

His questions have 444 upvotes, so he should actually have 4400 rep. He lost some to users being deleted. Looking at the reputation log he actually has less than he should have, but I'm not an expert.

Re: Stack Overflow sold to Prosus for $1.8B

#513

Post by thomasahle »

rhizome wrote: post #325
gk1 wrote: post #292

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Possibly related: SO requires you reach some number of upvotes before you yourself can upvote. When I use SO and try to upvote a useful answer I'm always reminded that I don't have the privilege of upvoting.

This is (part of) why I upvote anything even remotely helpful, explaining that some command switch does (or doesn't do) X, or syntax clarification, or even having the best formatted and/or written answer, asking a question I didn't know I had, and so on. I'm not a power SO'er, but I have some privileges and I do try to help the site be good. It's kind of like Craigslist for me in that random people like me are also t…

> This is (part of) why I upvote anything even remotely helpful, explaining that some command switch does (or doesn't do) X, or syntax clarification, or even having the best formatted and/or written answer, asking a question I didn't know I had, and so on.

I recall listening to the stackoverflow podcast and Jeff was asked about his threshold for upvoting.

I recall he said he upvoted something like all answers that were nor spam. Since, people are trying to help for no benefit to themselves, so why wouldn't you at least give them that?

Re: Stack Overflow sold to Prosus for $1.8B

#514

Post by qyph »

Aditya_Garg wrote: post #496
bhandziuk wrote: post #446

Earlier quoted context omitted.

SO being SO has increased it's value year over year. There's no need to change anything, just ride those coat tails to profit.

If the total accumulation of year to year profits was higher than 1.8B, then the current owners of Stack Overflow would've never sold.

Perhaps they want liquidity, a more diverse portfolio, etc.

Re: Stack Overflow sold to Prosus for $1.8B

#515

Post by Ericson2314 »

ddingus wrote: post #318

While I'm happy for the people who made a lot of money in this transaction, I always read these announcements with a bit of angst. From a user point of view, I expect this to go like Reddit has, for example. Everyone building that value saw high use value, returns on their investment in the form of information they need, lean, easy to find, high signal to noise. Now there is a debt to be paid. The new owner needs to…

This is why we societal debt > equity, for ownership is like a debt that can never be paid back.

I'm convinced this is a sensitivity to initial conditions phenomenon where if we hadn't transitioned to capitalism from feudalism, equity/ownership-like contracts would be laughed out of the room. "Perpetuity? C'mon!"

Re: Stack Overflow sold to Prosus for $1.8B

#516

Post by thomasahle »

hinkley wrote: post #499
gk1 wrote: post #292

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Possibly related: SO requires you reach some number of upvotes before you yourself can upvote. When I use SO and try to upvote a useful answer I'm always reminded that I don't have the privilege of upvoting.

Didn't you also need a few upvotes on comments before it would let you post an answer?

The other way around. You can't comment without a bit of reputation. You can always ask and answer questions.

Re: Stack Overflow sold to Prosus for $1.8B

#517

Post by joelbluminator »

gm3dmo wrote: post #502
joelbluminator wrote: post #366

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Since my loyalty to SO is approximately zero That's you though. It's not about loyalty, it's about Stackoverflow almost becoming a verb like Google. Many many people are used to using it, it's brand is very powerful. I don't see some competing tool stealing lots of mind share. Btw the thing about talking to maintainers directly is already done on small communities on discuss pages (ElixirForum for instance), on Dis…

TomTom and BlackBerry had great brands, marketing and great software stacks. I still correct the google maps voice when it tells me to take the third exit on the roundabout. It’s “roundabound”. The people who ran those companies didn’t see anybody stealing their businesses either. Yet they are well and truly gone. https://youtu.be/ATulnxruvhQ

Not sure TomTom had as dominant a brand for navigation as Stackoverflow has for Q&A. Stackoverflow is pretty much alone in this space still which is pretty amazing when you think about it.

Re: Stack Overflow sold to Prosus for $1.8B

#518

Post by r00fus »

philote wrote: post #463
johnchristopher wrote: post #418

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I have given up on participating on SO because more often than not I am told I don't have enough reputation to do something (I don't know if it's commenting or giving an answer or giving an upvote but there are some questions for which answers are wrong or need some updates and I can't participate. So I just don't by default. I think I can't upvote on some stack and I find this weird).

I can't downvote your comment here on HN, presumably because I don't have enough reputation. And HN doesn't even tell me.

It's a mitigation to the "bury brigade" problem digg used to have. I think a relatively low hurdle is a good balance.

Re: Stack Overflow sold to Prosus for $1.8B

#519

Post by ejb999 »

Top 0.5% SO'er here, but the funniest thing that I have had happen to me - and it has happened more than once - is I google for an answer to a programming problem I am having, get brought to stack overflow, and find the accepted answer to the question is one i myself wrote years before.

Re: Stack Overflow sold to Prosus for $1.8B

#520

Post by neves »

Am I too pessimist, or it'll really ruin one of the greatest internet creations. They will have to take back their billion dollars investment. Soon a new Expert-Exchange near you.

The collective knowledge accumulated is SO is fantastic. You children that don't remember the savage world before SO.

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