Runneth Over

The demise of Stack overflow

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Stack Overflow Page Views

For years Stack Overflow was the go-to place for developers to get help with tricky coding problems. Many are now turning to code-writing AI assistants instead, such as Cursor or Microsoft’s Github Copilot. Two-fifths of coders say they use such tools. According to Similarweb, a data provider, Stack Overflow’s monthly internet traffic has fallen by around half over the past two years. Last year the company went through two rounds of layoffs, firing about a third of its workforce in total. “Death by LLM,” is how Elon Musk described the company’s fate on X, the social media-site he owns, referring to the large language models that underpin generative AI.

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Questions asked per month on Stack Overflow

Data: Stack Exchange

Looking at questions asked over time, a few things stand out:

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Code dependent