[pnathan]

I came to similar conclusions in 2010 or so; I had gotten a fair number of points whiling away my hours as a help desk TA in my CS department, I then got a job, asked some questions about Perl, and then faded out. Then as I realized money making was - broadly - absent from SO, it became clear that the digital sharecroppers were what was fueling whatever money making venture it would turn out to be.

As the community moderation approaches began to migrate from the lighthearted to the grim-faced bureaucratic, I migrated away.

While I have derived value from SO, I derive more value today from reading documents and manuals than I do from StackOverflow questions.