StackOverflow Wins April Fools
3 April 2021
I have been on too high of a stress level lately, and encountering this pop-up on StackOverflow while working at the airport yesterday nearly broke me:
Click on it and there's a modal with an upsell:
I thought I understood StackOverflow's business model: a question and answer site that attracts programmers and then filters them by skill for companies to then recruit and hire. I got the Critical Mix (PopResearch then Dynata) job through StackOverflow. How are they making so little that they now want to kill their business by squeezing money out of their users? In a social media landscape filled with algorithms designed to make you unhappy and thus more engaged to see more ads and generate more advertising revenue, I had thought of StackOverflow as a shining city on a hill. Jaron Lanier may not give them a pass like he does with the Microsoft properties Github and LinkedIn when he urges you to delete all your social media accounts now, but every programmer I know's life is better and easier because of StackOverflow. How could they decide to destory it all so cavalierly? Wait, is that a keyboard they're selling? Upon the realization that I'd been had, my heart lept at the brilliance of the joke.
