I think many forums are dying to “attention competition.”

That’s my personal experience.

I kind of want to participate in some forums, but a on-and-off doomscrolling addiction, executive dysfunction and some other stuff sucks up all the time.

And many of my niches have gone to Discord, which is an information black hole yet pings the hell out of me for attention. It’s an abomination. I had to quit it, cold turkey.

Reddit played a role, of course.

That's not why

You needed to earn the privilege to answer questions or ask them (I think).

It just became too difficult to get help there or help people.

In a smaller or larger degree, any internet environment where you can ask questions has the same problem, attrition. It looks like this:

[First thread]
Alice: "How do I shot web?"
Bob: "You just HDGLKSKTR the DLASFD in the SKSTGA".
Alice: "Thanks, Bob. What's HDGLKSKTR?"
Charlie: "Please do not ask separated questions in the comments. Open another thread to do it."

[Second thread]
Alice: "What's HDGLKSKTR? I need it to shot web."
Dan: "It's the FGDJ of the DSKFD. You config it through SFDH."

[Third thread]
Alice: "Whats FGDJ?"
Ed: "why do you want to know it? lol lmao."
Alice: "I asked how to shot web. Then someone told me I need to HDGLKSKTR the DLASFD in the SKSTGA. Then I asked what's HDGLKSKTR. They told me it's the FGDJ of the DSKFD, configured through SFDH. I don't know any of those acronyms, I just want to shot web."
[Radio silence]

[Fourth thread]
Alice: "Whats FGDJ? I need it to shot web."
Fran: "You don't need FGDJ to shot web lol lmao."
Gerald: "Such basic question lol lmao. Use the search."
***⟨blink⟩Jean Niteur⟨/blink⟩*** ==[MOD]==: "Your question was removed as duplicate."

Then Alice spends two days searching the site for "FGDJ". No other thread about the topic pops up, except her own. But in the meantime, she notices someone else answered the second thread.

[Second thread, again]
Fran: "Actually it's «shoot», not «shot»."
Alice: "OK. And what's HDGLKSKTR? I need it to «shoot» web."
[Radio silence]

[Fifth thread]
Alice: "Why is this site so fucking shitty? I've been trying to shoot web for three days, some people tried to help me (thank you, Bob and Dan!), but when asking follow-up questions it's like everyone went out of their way to waste my time without helping me.
Gerald: "entitled lol lmao X-D"
Hector: "toxic"
***⟨blink⟩Jean Niteur⟨/blink⟩*** ==[MOD]==: "Your question was removed as not-a-question. Additionally, you've been banned for 3d for incivility. Make sure you read the FAQ, the Code of Conduct, Posting Guidelines and Commenting Guidelines."

It is also dead due to how repulsive the place was. Literally.

Closed. Reason: duplicate.

Looks like it was already on a long-term decline, AI just threw it off a cliff. It was likely ripe for an alternative.

Damn, I hadn't visited the site (according to my profile page) in just over 5 years. I've had an account for little over 17 years, which puts me in the early adopters.

Anyway, yeah, I'm one of those top-end commenters that left the site during Covid because everything went to shit: too many new low quality questions, too many assholes whining about it and overreacting making the problem worse, and the owners had basically already abandoned the site for years after Stack Exchange failed to become the dominant framework for the entire internet.

It's a real shame, there's never been a resource so good for programming and probably never will be again. Now that AI is out there stealing every bit of knowledge, all the experts I know are hoarding up and looking to sell their expertise at premium since it's knowledge and experience that AI can't get or replicate.

just a shitty place to get help. gave up contributing there years ago because of all the gatekeeping. their janky login popup didn't help either.

Its dead because its biggest users are useless asshokes.

Not sure where to go now though. Codidact.com is growing at least but it’s still really small

For some reason, they managed to fuck up their login page so much, that it is literally impossible for me to sign up to it. I have tried multiple times in the last year and every single time I could not sign up for some weird reason.

Not because AI replaced SO, but because AI replaced programmers. 🤷

Also, Nazis.