Hacker News
points by Strilanc 1 day ago | 0 comments
If you look at the data on a log scale, and include other stack exchange sites, it's apparent that the serious decline is starting after ChatGPT launches: https://x.com/CraigGidney/status/2115664509042053377/photo/1

One way that stackoverflow does stand out from the other stackexchange sites is that its half life appears far shorter. On a log scale plot it has a steeper descent than the other stackexchange sites. I'm not sure what to make of that. Another interesting thing is that the math stackexchange initially declines more slowly than the others for a year or two and then decays pretty similarly. You can also see examples in some of the other sites of their decay beginning before chatgpt releases (e.g. drupal). You can also see some sites decaying a decade earlier (e.g. expressionengine). I think those outliers are from their subject being too specific and going out of style.

I got the cross-site data from data.stackexchange.com with this vibe-coded query:

    DECLARE @sql NVARCHAR(MAX) = N'
    SELECT
      site = [$site_name$],
      month = DATEADD(MONTH, DATEDIFF(MONTH, 0, CreationDate), 0),
      questions = COUNT(*)
    FROM PostsWithDeleted
    WHERE PostTypeId = 1
    GROUP BY DATEADD(MONTH, DATEDIFF(MONTH, 0, CreationDate), 0)
    ';

    EXEC dbo.sede_ineachdb
      @SQLCommand = @sql,
      @IncludeMainSites = 1,
      @IncludeMetaSites = 0,
      @IncludeMainMeta = 0;
[–] rerdavies 13 hours ago
So much for the long tail! The rate of decline after the advent of AIs is sobering. From 181,000 questions a month at the absolute peak, to less than a thousand a month now!
[–] Rochus 19 hours ago
That's interesting, thanks! The peak for most topics was around 2015-2020 apparently, and then came a "continuous" decline. If it really was a major event that caused the decline, wouldn't we expect to see a volatile plunge, like on the stock market?
[–] famouswaffles 14 hours ago
Today with Opus, Sol, etc there's basically no reason to visit the site, but when chatGPT launched it was powered by GPT 3.5, which would realistically only be able to answer a (minor) chunk of all possible StackOverflow questions.
[–] Rochus 13 hours ago
There are many potential explanations, including the policy changes in 2018. LLMs are definitely a concurrence to the service, but since the decline started years before they were really useful, other reasons might be relevant. I don't know to what degree. I just wondered why some of the forums had significant peaks after the GPT line.