It seems you could make a law out of this - something like, "The amount a site values its community is inversely proportional to the community's size."
Anywho, seems it's time to look at federating Q&A.
Or maybe rather "to the accumulated value the community has created"? I don't even think the community at SO is that large, or has grown that much recently. At some point, the users are committed having sunken so much time and effort into making the site great, and the company knows it and wants to squeeze more money out of the user contributions.
I wouldn't be that surprised if they introduced a "pro user, only $7,99 per month" package in 2020 that gives some small perks ("your questions cannot be downvoted", "add a 100 points reward to three questions per month", "animated avatar", "special highlighting of your very important questions").
I wouldn't be that surprised if they introduced a "pro user, only $7,99 per month" package in 2020 that gives some small perks ("your questions cannot be downvoted", "add a 100 points reward to three questions per month", "animated avatar", "special highlighting of your very important questions").