Sooner or later, every online forum becomes focused primarily on driving users away. This doesn't make any sense (that I know of), but it seems to be a law of nature.
Long live HN! Here nobody rushed in to say "SO is not a forum, it's a Q&A site". Ooops, I've just said it! Help, I got contaminated!
Seriously, I've seen what you mention happening with ubuntu forum (now mostly replaced by ask ubuntu). I think I know why.
Ubuntu forum had a section for beginner's questions. It was a nice idea, both for beginners and for not-so-advanced people who still wanted to contribute. There, you found questions you knew the answer to.
So you received faster replies if you posted in the beginner's section.
So more and more people started posting in the beginner's section. It got to the point where not only I didn't know the answer to most questions, but most of the time I couldn't even understand the questions. So I stopped reading them.
If the questions get more and more complex, the set of people able to answer them becomes smaller and smaller. People unable to answer them give up.
SO could very well go this way. Some experienced users are saying that there is a finite set of distinct questions people can ask about programming. The chances that your question is going to be closed as a duplicate is thus increasing. The accepted questions are getting more and more esoteric.
But... Wait until we all get our hands on quantum computers!
Seriously, I've seen what you mention happening with ubuntu forum (now mostly replaced by ask ubuntu). I think I know why.
Ubuntu forum had a section for beginner's questions. It was a nice idea, both for beginners and for not-so-advanced people who still wanted to contribute. There, you found questions you knew the answer to.
So you received faster replies if you posted in the beginner's section.
So more and more people started posting in the beginner's section. It got to the point where not only I didn't know the answer to most questions, but most of the time I couldn't even understand the questions. So I stopped reading them.
If the questions get more and more complex, the set of people able to answer them becomes smaller and smaller. People unable to answer them give up.
SO could very well go this way. Some experienced users are saying that there is a finite set of distinct questions people can ask about programming. The chances that your question is going to be closed as a duplicate is thus increasing. The accepted questions are getting more and more esoteric.
But... Wait until we all get our hands on quantum computers!