Hackers' Pub

Syntax	Description	Examples
`"` keyword `"`	Finds the string within quotes, including spaces. Case-insensitive. (Escape quotes inside with `\"`)	`"Hackers' Pub"`
`from:` handle	Finds content written by the specified user.	`from:hongminhee` `from:hongminhee@hollo.social`
`lang:` ISO 639-1	Finds content written in the specified language.	`lang:en`
`#` tag	Finds content with the specified tag. Case-insensitive.	`#HackersPub`
condition condition	Finds content that satisfies both conditions on either side of the space (logical AND).	`"Hackers' Pub" lang:en`
condition `OR` condition	Finds content that satisfies at least one of the conditions on either side of the OR operator (logical OR).	`#HackersPub OR "Hackers' Pub" lang:en`
`(` condition `)`	Combines the operators within the parentheses first.	`(#HackersPub OR "Hackers' Pub" OR "Hackers Pub") lang:en`

Cory Doctorow @pluralistic@mamot.fr

1/5/2026, 2:56:59 PM

Public

#AWorldWithoutPeople #AI

https://developers.slashdot.org/story/26/01/05/1431212/stack-overflow-went-from-200000-monthly-questions-to-nearly-zero?utm_source=rss1.0mainlinkanon&utm_medium=feed

Stack Overflow's monthly question volume has collapsed about 300 -- levels not seen since the site launched in 2009, according to data from the Stack Overflow Data Explorer that tracks the platform's activity over its sixteen-year history.

Questions peaked around 2014 at roughly 200,000 per month, then began a gradual decline that accelerated dramatically after ChatGPT's November 2022 launch. By May 2025, monthly questions had fallen to early-2009 levels, and the latest data through early 2026 shows the collapse has only continued -- the line now sits near the bottom of the chart, barely registering.

The decline predates LLMs. Questions began dropping around 2014 when Stack Overflow improved moderator efficiency and closed questions more aggressively. In mid-2021, Prosus acquired Stack Overflow for $1.8 billion. The founders, Jeff Atwood and Joel Spolsky, exited before the terminal decline became apparent. ChatGPT accelerated what was already underway. The chatbot answers programming questions faster, draws on Stack Overflow's own corpus for training data, and doesn't close questions for being duplicates.

If you have a fediverse account, you can quote this note from your own instance. Search https://mamot.fr/users/pluralistic/statuses/115843073297668133 on your instance and quote it. (Note that quoting is not supported in Mastodon.)

mhoye @mhoye@mastodon.social

1/5/2026, 4:24:54 PM

Public

@codinghorrorJeff Atwood timed the market on this as close to perfectly as you could have.

(I hope that some small part of that (noble, laudable) commitment to giving away half his wealth includes "everyone else who worked at SO never needs to worry about rent or groceries ever again".)

https://mamot.fr/@pluralistic/115843073297668133

Alena Dausacker @geistesgift@mastodon.social

1/5/2026, 3:50:49 PM

Public

RE: https://mamot.fr/@pluralistic/115843073297668133

Well that means tech problems newer than 2025 won't get answered at all because nobody is asking people anymore and no new training data for the slop models is coming in as people stop doing that work for free.