Here's a post I put onto the story posted at StackOverflow regarding its sale to Prosus. As of this morning, it's been a day or two and it still hasn't passed moderation. I mean, that's their right, but let's say it doesn't speak well for their willingness to listen. Makes you wonder how many more critical comments are in moderation limbo.

Once this acquisition is complete, we will have more resources and support to grow our public platform and paid products, and we can accelerate our global impact tremendously.

But what ways are you unable to impact the globe now? That is, shouldn't I substitute "impact" with "financial growth" to decode this sentence?

My guess is that StackOverflow is doing exactly what we appreciate it doing right now. That is, THE GROWTH IS OVER. I couldn't care less if you spin out opportunities based on the same codebase in some wholly owned subsidiary that chases cash, but within stackoverflow.com? I can't recall anything changing over the last almost 10 years that's a knock it out of the park, revolutionary advance. And I don't need one!

There are some interesting problems that could use solving at stackoverflow.com, certainly. How do you keep answers fresh when the answers to questions change over time, and old accepts are now objectively wrong? How do you manage moderation to ensure it's not tone deaf (or worse) at times? Maybe even, "How can I pay to get an answer to my question beyond simple point bounties?" That last one is the only one I can think of quickly that increases revenue (and only as a middle banker, not as the primary entity paid) and usefulness of the site.

But growth? What growth? Are the servers crumbling over the load? No. Are there too many low quality answers? Maybe, but it's been reasonably easy to get past the chaff. Do you need a better mobile app for countries with less infrastructure? Well, actually, yes. Yes you do. But beyond that...

Convince me this isn't about the money, or -- and I'll give you a softball here -- even primarily about the money. What is this "impact" primarily about that's not income?


 

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