Whenever I use the word "you", I mean the company of course.

Right now, Stack Overflow is mocked. Hated. Obsolete in the eyes of many. People have no reason to go there when they can go to Reddit and ChatGPT. It's kind of crazy how quickly that shift happened, but I think it can be explained away by there essentially being two camps that really helped old Stack Overflow thrive and grow. Those that want to do their due diligence... and those that were forced to do so because there was Stack Overflow and not much else. The latter is no longer a target audience and the former turns out to be a frightfully small group of people.

So I wonder what makes Reddit so different. As it is popular as ever even though it has its own fair share of controversy.

It is not a knowledge base; pretty much the Achillis heel I would say. A knowledge base is a very closed ecosystem; many checks need to pass before content is allowed in. That is in stark contrast to a goal of having more engagement. You want an open ecosystem. Reddit open... Stack Overflow closed.

Subreddits exist and each subreddit has its own rules and... rulers. This is a very powerful aspect of Reddit I would say. Yes there are plenty of subreddits that are absolutely unpleasant to say the least and they are being run by people with a power fetish, but there are many more subreddits which are wonderful because they are run by and visited by good people. Each subreddit having its own rules is strong as it allows them to be tailored to the content and the visitors.

Let's pretend for a moment that language tags are subreddits. There is just the one C++ tag. The C++ tag is very mature; well-established. People frequenting it set the bar quite high for new questions. You had better do your homework well and not get your tags messed up. In Reddit, there would probably be two subreddits. One for hardcore C++ programmers with strict rules and one with more lax rules aimed at casual C++ questions, and the occasional C question pretending to be a C++ question. And the odd question masquerading to be a generic C++ question but it's actually very specific to Microsoft. And the occasional shitpost about how object-oriented programming is for morons. It's all good.

On Stack Overflow... good luck soldier, it's not all good. The one C++ tag is all you get. And so you have to face the one quality standard.

Reddit is more geared towards allowing fun. Subreddits have their set topics for sure, but off-topic things are not shunned unless the rules strictly prohibit it. It can't be all work and no play. Certainly not in this day and age where there is so much misery going around, people flock to places that are more lighthearted in nature. Stack Overflow isn't that, at all. Even though that is by design and for good reasons, it can't be denied that it makes engagement suffer.

Reddit is a bubble site. People live in bubbles nowadays. They enter one, do their thing, get out again and then forget everything that has happened inside of it to do exactly the same things, make exactly the same arguments, have exactly the same fights, set exactly the same fires and make exactly the same mistakes again the next day. Stack Overflow on the other hand, is one large perpetual bubble. It wants you to enter and stay there forever, remembering everything, searching for everything, keeping everything up to date. Not what people are looking for. The bubble must pop.

That's kind of the thing isn't it? The goal is to be able to have the micro bubbles exist next to that one large perpetual bubble, without them sticking together like gum in hair. I have to be honest... I don't see that ever working. It needs to be a different site. That's in your benefit as well, as "Stack Overflow" is not exactly going to be selling tickets anymore. You need DidNotReddit Overflow.