[bastardoperator]

Who cares, people with homework need help too. They're beginners so asking them to formulate a perfect question or conduct research is basically a non-starter. If the barrier to entry is become a professional first, it's no wonder why the company and its user base are shrinking.

[trey-jones]

I think "professionals who can't figure this obscure things out" is the best use-case for SO, really. Perhaps being a professional is something to be required. I'm speaking only from my own experience. I have only ever asked a handful of questions on SO (going back to about 2011), and that's because I spend hours and hours trying to figure it out first. So yes, I think I do expect that of other questioners as well.

"Why won't my docker container build?" Well, because there's a typo in your instructions and it says so clearly in the error output. Of course we get tired of answering these types of questions.

[bastardoperator]

I can agree with you to an extent, but the model doesn't scale and they're getting beat by alternatives that are seemingly better for the majority.

[Etherlord87]

Can you name those alternatives? I don't think SO/SE is being beaten by anything, it has no competition within the set of questions it allows. When it comes to other questions - of course other websites are better for answering the questions that are offtopic on SO/SE.