How Quora Died - eviltoast
One of Our Best Websites Died While No One Was Looking
slate.com
The once-thriving site used to answer our most specific questions. But users are fleeing.

“Why Do So Many Music Venues Use Ticketmaster?” “What’s It Like to Train to Be a Sushi Chef?” “How Do Martial Artists Break Concrete Blocks?” If you were looking for answers to such questions 10 years ago, your best resource for finding a thorough, expert-informed response likely would have been one of the most interesting and longest-lasting corners of the internet: Quora.

  • d3Xt3r@lemmy.nzEnglish
    1722·
    9 months ago

    If you were looking for answers to such questions 10 years ago, your best resource for finding a thorough, expert-informed response likely would have been one of the most interesting and longest-lasting corners of the internet: Quora.

    I disagree, the best place for such answers used to be Reddit, and Stack Exchange for the techy stuff. Quora always felt like cancer for some reason and I never really used it.

    • Gork@lemm.eeEnglish
      87·
      9 months ago

      I think that’s because Quora paywalls responses from volunteers, preventing others from seeing them unless they pay a subscription. Pretty scummy.

      • stoy@lemmy.zipEnglish
        202·
        9 months ago

        I wouldn’t call it scummy, just bad business, give people one premium answer per week, so they know the quallity and at incentivised to pay.

        • ahornsirup@sopuli.xyzEnglish
          19·
          9 months ago

          Do they pay the people who answer the questions? I genuinely don’t know. But if they don’t then, yes, it is scummy to just profit off of someone else’s work and not pay them.

          • FinishingDutch@lemmy.worldEnglish
            84·
            9 months ago

            I’ve contributed to sites like Wikipedia.

            Not everything needs to be measured in money though. There’s inherent satisfaction in the work with things like this. And at the end of the day, we all benefit from having platforms with accurate, well thought out answers. Today you’re answering, tomorrow you’re the one with the question.

            • ahornsirup@sopuli.xyzEnglish
              25·
              9 months ago

              Wikipedia is run by a nonprofit. They don’t monetise volunteer contributions and they don’t paywall the knowledge on their site, they run on donations. It’s not really a comparable situation.

        • AA5B@lemmy.worldEnglish
          4·
          9 months ago

          It is though, because they gamed search engines well enough to frequently be in the top results yet never had an answer you could see. Annoying as fuck

    • Haus@kbin.social
      7·
      9 months ago

      I’d say there was a period before reddit hit its pinnacle where Quora was significantly better. Probably more than 10 years ago, though, and only for a few years. I remember when I started spending more time on Reddit than Quora.