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The author's main point is that Expert's Exchange (EE) was very similar to StackOverflow (SO) until they needed to push up the S-curve from a profitability perspective. It's a valid concern since SO has relied on organic growth to fuel the necessary returns in order to sustain its current business model and then, more recently, attract VC investment. What the author doesn't mention is what makes SO slightly different. One is the licensing of the content, which the founders never fail to point out (and has already been rehashed here by several SO defenders). This is hand-waving, since they couldn't have achieved early success to drive organic growth without this license in place (this isn't the first time EE has been compared to SO). The other more interesting difference is the StackExchange (SE) platform and accompanying business model, which basically seeks to expand into an unending array of fields and topics. SO & SE are likely to continue being pleasant to use, as long as the StackExchange strategy is working and growth can come from the platform extension. Should that strategy fail, SO will need a growth strategy that provides the returns VCs expect and the company may be forced into some inconvenient (to users) "monetization" decisions. Essentially, when you're a for-profit company, it's easy to "do no evil" when you're rapidly growing organically. EE is only one such example, it's easy to come up with dozens of others: About.com, Mahalo, Digg, SourceForge, Google, Ben & Jerry's, etc. Unless it's a non-profit or maybe one of those new B-Corps, history provides much more support for skeptics. After all, company leaders aren't just acting out of greed, they are legally obligated to do what is best for shareholders. That said, let's hope Mr. Spolsky hasn't forgotten about his rant on platform providers who don't realize they are platform providers (http://www.joelonsoftware.com/articles/Platforms.html). He should be able to make the case that treating users (which are like developers in a traditional software platform) fairly will drive more long-term shareholder value than tactics employed by those that came before SO. Only time will tell. |