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

Re: Stack Overflow sold to Prosus for $1.8B

#641

Post by wingworks » Wed, Jun 02, 2021, 11:18 PM UTC

dstick wrote: post #216

pan69 wrote: post #97

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I loved listening to the Stack Overflow podcast with Jeff and Joel. It was kinda crazy that they were doing a podcast like that while they (Jeff mostly) were building it and coming up with the name, etc. Still have all the mp3's somewhere. Edit: I'm in the top 2%. Most of my rep. comes from interest earned on questions/answers I posted very early on.

I think most of it is really down to the quality of the answers you've given combined with the vast amount of users on SO. I'm user 537XXXX with an account that can't be more than 8 years old but I did spend a solid 6 months actively posting detailed solutions to problems I ran into - ~50 in total. And some more general answers. Which has amounted to ~4.900 points. Which isn't _that_ much. Just 490 upvotes. Or 10 per…

I'm in the top 3%, joined in 2010, it's mostly all from questions though. I only posted 8 answers, vs 83 questions. When I joined I remember allot of the issues I came across has no answers, so I guess with the years to come lots of others had the same issues/questions. At the time I thought it was just me, everyone else seems to know so much. Guess we all start at the bottom at some point.

Re: Stack Overflow sold to Prosus for $1.8B

#642

Post by crispyambulance » Wed, Jun 02, 2021, 11:22 PM UTC

robertlagrant wrote: post #529

crispyambulance wrote: post #403

Earlier quoted context omitted.

SO is OK for very narrow questions that have concrete definitive answers. Unfortunately, SO's self-appointed police force will shut people down for any deviation from "the rules" (as they interpret them), or sometimes for no reason at all. Github issues, on the other hand, seems to be receptive to open-ended "why" questions which would be smacked down hard on SO. Github has a higher barrier to entry. You have to know…

One's about discussions; the other isn't.

Sure, but BOTH about solving problems and getting answers. That's the important thing.

The culture of SO become incredibly weird and IMHO will eventually sink it.

Re: Stack Overflow sold to Prosus for $1.8B

#643

Post by ekianjo » Wed, Jun 02, 2021, 11:22 PM UTC

khuey wrote: post #599

ThomasRedstone wrote: post #583

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That isn't how a Ponzi scheme works, a Ponzi scheme directly uses fees taken from new members to pay out older ones, lying and saying it's from actual business activity. Crypto doesn't behave any differently than the stock market (except the fundamentals are a little shakier, okay, a lot shakier).

Cryptocurrency doesn't have dividends or share buybacks which are what make stocks have inherent value.

Not all stocks have dividends.

Re: Stack Overflow sold to Prosus for $1.8B

#644

Post by bhandziuk » Wed, Jun 02, 2021, 11:25 PM UTC

CRConrad wrote: post #630

bhandziuk wrote: post #572

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Do you just forget your passwords? Why would you make so many SO accounts?

Why would they -- SX, that is -- need so many different sites?

Are you suggesting you use a different account per SX site?

Re: Stack Overflow sold to Prosus for $1.8B

#645

Post by bigtones » Wed, Jun 02, 2021, 11:35 PM UTC

deepfriedrice wrote: post #524

polynomial wrote: post #479

Earlier quoted context omitted.

1. He originally submitted the question using his real name before quickly changing his user name to "frosty." Oops, too late. 2. Forensic testimony in the complaint asserted Silk Road used this method and in fact used code identical to that in the answer. 3. Silk Road server encryption was signed with Frosty@Frosty. #2 and #3 were evidentiary, but #1 is what tied everything to a real person's name.

How did they find out he originally posted under his real name? They must have known that was his profile, and then SO handed over the data proving it?

Yes, the DOJ subpoenaed Stack Overflow as part of the investigation. It's pretty standard.

Normally the DOJ gets access to all the emails of the target of the investigation, then from there they look through the emails and subpoena any companies that might hold additional information - such as Stack Overflow.

Re: Stack Overflow sold to Prosus for $1.8B

#646

Post by vmception » Wed, Jun 02, 2021, 11:36 PM UTC

shanebrunette wrote: post #625

khuey wrote: post #599

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Cryptocurrency doesn't have dividends or share buybacks which are what make stocks have inherent value.

As a counterpoint, YFI literally buys back it's token from fees earned from users using their automated yield farming strategy. There are plenty of duds around, but that doesn't make everything a dud.

PancakeBunny too! I’m considering to buy the dip…

Re: Stack Overflow sold to Prosus for $1.8B

#647

Post by vmception » Wed, Jun 02, 2021, 11:36 PM UTC

z3t4 wrote: post #558

wwweston wrote: post #334

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The dynamic makes sense: the more popular the question, the more likely it is to get asked early on. That means early answerers will reap benefits from the popularity of the questions down the road. There's definitely an "interest" dynamic to it, but there's also something like consuming the solutions with a good effort-to-reward ratio inside a search space early and then subsequent solutions get harder (kindof like…

High reward for joining early is a good growth strategy.

and being involved with a common question

the more newbish the better

Re: Stack Overflow sold to Prosus for $1.8B

#648

Post by zerocrates » Wed, Jun 02, 2021, 11:37 PM UTC

swiley wrote: post #506

jakub_g wrote: post #402

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Plus the constant nag to install the app on mobile, and sometimes even downright blocking access and "see in the app". (For now there's still "old." subdomain which works if you enable desktop emulation on mobile, but it can shut down any day).

The fact that "old." still works is a pretty strong indication that the new redesign is to ensure new users will tolerate manipulation while retaining a large portion of the old users. Looking at the ratio of old/new site users is probably a very powerful analytics tool for predicting ad revenue for a given subreddit.

In my occasional interactions on Reddit it seems a very large proportion of users are on the "new" Reddit, the mobile site, or an app. I'm sure it varies by community though (especially ones that heavily use custom CSS and things that don't work on the new site).

Just as one example I can recall, you can do things that are kind of like "quote retweets" with the cross-post feature that don't really make sense on the old site (on "new Reddit" when you crosspost the original post/title are displayed in a little window so you'll see people make titles that are actually commenting on the original post and not on whatever the link actually is). On old Reddit these just show up as links to whatever the original post linked to, but with the "meta-commentary" title. More than once I've encountered one of these with confusion until a comment explained, or I thought to check the tab that shows where else the same link has been posted.

Re: Stack Overflow sold to Prosus for $1.8B

#649

Post by phist_mcgee » Wed, Jun 02, 2021, 11:40 PM UTC

phist_mcgee wrote: post #631

skunkworker wrote: post #337

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Conde Nast also owns Ars Technica, which personally is my favorite tech-news site and has high and consistent quality.

If you ever want to see thee Ars community dogpile on a certain topic, read any article on cryptocurrencies. You will get the following comments at the top of the heap: Crypto means I can't buy a graphics card Crypto is a ponzi scheme and should be banned It is immoral to own Bitcoin, and governments should punish people who do Would you like to buy my new XCoin ha ha ha. Elon Musk is amazing, but this crypto thing m…

I think the downvotes on my comment show I have hit a nerve. I did not disagree with any of the points I listed, I am simply pointing out a fact. Downvoting this comment does disprove not my point.

The downvotes without engaging with my post are what is wrong with commodified community participation (comment/post points); exactly what harms Stack Overflow in the long run.

Re: Stack Overflow sold to Prosus for $1.8B

#650

Post by ljm » Wed, Jun 02, 2021, 11:44 PM UTC

johnchristopher wrote: post #418

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.

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).

For me, I just don't use it often enough to log back in. It's largely been supplanted by browsing issue trackers and reading the source.

At the same time, google search results are massively less useful now and if I don't get a hit, I'm going to reach out to the source.

To that extent, I think SO has the same problem as Google - it will regress to the mean.

This is also because google search results will be flooded with SO mirrors that rerender content but with more ads.