[mks40]

You are not wrong. Of course, this is personal perspective, but in 2014-15 there was still a fairly academic tone to many questions, as in, you could ask actual science and math questions and get a knowledgable academic to answer them.

Today, if I open my feed, most of it is questions on personal experiences (from just now): 'What is the craziest thing you ever did when you were a teenager?', 'What surprised you most about attending graduate school in the US?, 'What is the most brutal death?'. I never specified interest in any of these topics.

What is worse to me is that I do not see any way to disable topics quickly so I have to perpetually mute high-impact posters who have attracted a large enough audience to be asked about their personal lives and seemingly enjoy answering the same things about themselves over and over. Like any web forum, the majority of replies comes from a relatively small amount of posters who keep retelling their personal story about their admission to MIT/their high IQ.

I suppose Quora is paying the price of growth and I realise my interests are not aligned with Quora's in attracting a large audience. It just means I am not personally interested in writing any content for it any more and I think many early users feel the same.

[GoodbyeEarl]

That's exactly the reason why I left Quora. It used to be such an amazing place to read interesting stuff now it's only about meaningful questions.

[mks40]

Upon further consideration, I suspect this was a very intentional move and not just a growth effect, because they could just as well have kept moderation strict.

People do like to answer questions and be acknowledged for their know-how, but what people love is to talk about themselves and have their experiences validated.

Sure, Snapchat, Instagram, Facebook give a way to have your social existence acknowledged, but Quora offers anyone to have their individual life experiences validated, no matter if they have the lifestyle or looks typically associated with social media fame. That is a very powerful attractor but unfortunately brings out the result described above - users beginning to talk incessantly about themselves as a topic, the more one answers, the more one has the chance to convert to a topic oneself and have even more explicit opportunity to tell one's story.

Combine this with low traffic in topics of maybe more serious interest and Quora will suggest any popular content ('topics you might like). This is how one ends up having these stories in your feed without ever expressing interest in them.