Research from the University of Auckland on Stack Overflow’s demise over the last few years points to an increasingly worrying trend in the software community: the best, or highest-skill, contributors are leaving in droves.
AI, which arguably bridges the gap between most entry-level and mid-range coders and some of the best in the business, might actually be accelerating the latter’s exit from online communities, as they feel their efforts are no longer as valued as they once were.
Stack Overflow has seen a nearly 76% decline in monthly questions posted since ChatGPT’s advent in 2022, indicating that both new and existing users are abandoning the site.
A much broader problem than just Stack Overflow?
Stack Overflow’s problems and the reason for its decline were multi-faceted; however, many users felt that the site and some of its most talented contributors engaged in a certain degree of hubris.
This, coupled with heavy-handed moderation that many called ‘self-righteous,’ meant that users finding a viable option would inevitably leave the platform.
ChatGPT and its AI alternatives became considerably more pliable and, over time, doubled as search engines for many coders with routine, repeatable queries, even as AI increasingly handled questions such as syntax issues better than before.
Hellbound and Down 