StackOverflow: Retiring the Beta Site

I remember the switch from random discussion forum that preceded it to stack overflow, the problem with random forums were that the answer was hidden somewhere down or on page 3. Stack overflow was significant improvement in this regard (to a point that I only searched programming question with site:stackoverflow.com to filter out other methods), the question was curated and updated. Now we have new thing that is even better so there is no going back. The progression was roughly:

1. Random website

2. Random thematic blog, seo'd

3. Random forum

4. Curated question portal like SO

5. Thematic subreddit when it became impossible to ask on SO

6. LLM

Here is a hard question - how could Stack Overflow succeed in a post-chatgpt eta? I mean obviously the new CEO and leadership has been total trash and has squandered their goodwill and user loyalty, but if I was CEO instead I don't know how I would save the ship.

Doubling down on how it was done in the 'good old days' probably wouldn't work because you would slowly bleed user to AI. Selling data to AI companies might work for a bit, but I would guess that the sales value of SO's data has quickly diminishing returns. So what is their path forward?

I love how SO lets itself being bullied by 25-30 high-rep users - the very same users who have chased away all the other users from the website.

While AI definitely took away a lot of people from SO, most people are relieved that they don't have to interact with that literally garbage community when they have an IT/CS question. They didn't leave because of the website design, but I also believe that the new design wouldn't have chased many away either.

These users' rule hasn't really worked out so far, as demonstrated by the current state of SO. Maybe it is time to ignore that very small, but very vocal group? Though probably that should have happened years ago, maybe it's just time to cut their losses.

The Beta Site is at https://beta.stackoverflow.com

To me, it looks like more like Digg from the old days.

The beta site was a horrible redesign. It hid information that was previously visible, the layout was confusing, comments were harder to read, and it just made no sense.

I wasn’t aware there was a beta. For those familiar, what were its issues?

Lol, what a massive trainwreck.

There's a big chance SO is used more by AIs than real humans, nowadays.

Out with the old, in with the new.

The site is populated exclusively with die-hard fanatics with no real-world third space using that community to fulfill their personal social needs. They'll do that all the way to its complete and utter death due to uselessness. Change would be anathema to them so there is no path for the site but death.

There is no utility it fulfills except as a watering hole for those unfortunate souls who built their village there.

every *Overflow site other than the main one for asking coding questions has been very good to me. StackOverflow was a terrible experience. What LLMs got right was when asking seemingly stupid questions, or simple questions, or RTFM-answerable questions didn't get responses of "RTFM", or "Duplicate", or the like.

If for want of the Astronomy overflow and math overflow and others to remain I will not wish that StackOverflow go the route of Ask Jeeves (and wither away into irrelevance) but I'm hoping they take a look inside and see why they failed.