Hajra Naz
Quora had a plain idea: it would be a spot to share smart things and know-how. People could ask about anything and get good answers from clever folks on the site.
Imagine Yahoo Answers but for tech workers and smart thinkers.
Two people who used to work at Facebook started Quora in 2009. It grew fast with answers from big names in tech, smart college teachers, people who knew a lot about work, and regular folks who liked to share what they knew.
By 2014, it was worth a lot of money.
Quora got big because it helped people find not just facts, but real people who knew those facts.
On Quora, you could learn about hard science stuff or old wars, but you could also learn from experts who wrote about it.
Quora wanted to make the internet a better place where people would be kind and talk about smart things.
It has arguably failed as of 2024.
The reasons?
- The tremendously damaging potential of growth hackers and digital marketing.
- Artificial intelligence is the technology investors and consumers were told would elevate the platform to unprecedented heights.
It started simple. Quora had lots of people using it. They made a computer helper to pick the best answers. Before, good answers got top spots because many users liked them. Now, the computer chooses what to show. Helpful answers were still good, but the computer did strange things. Answers with strong feelings got more attention. People learned they could trick the computer by writing with strong feelings, even if the answer was not so good.
The computer was changing how people talked and acted on Quora.
Quora kept using the computer helper, and things got crazy. Bad people who want money saw the computer could be tricked. People could trick the website to show their writing more by putting in words that search engines like and saying things that sound too good to be true.
Also, they saw that the computer had trouble telling if a real person or a machine did writing. This meant someone could ask a computer to write something, copy it onto the website, and watch the website give it lots of likes and attention. Very quickly, the site was full of bad, silly writing made by computers.
At the same time, some of the website’s smartest and most liked writers, who were teachers and know-a-lots, started to leave.
Even though the computer liked writing that sounded very sure, many of the website’s smartest users didn’t like this. They always thought their job was to add more to the talk, not to tell everyone what to think.
Because they were scared the computer would show their writing wrong or because they didn’t want to change their writing to please the computer, the good writers stopped using the website. The writers who stayed watched sadly as their nice, careful writing got hidden under lots of bad writing that didn’t say anything important.
Quora had big troubles. The people in charge were in a funny spot.
Quora was known for smart things and good info. But now, it was controlled by machines that could not tell real smart stuff from fake smart stuff.
To get more people to look, the machines showed things that got clicks but were not good. This hurt Quora’s smart image. To get quick wins, Quora might lose its good name in the long term.
Quora gave up and made Poe. Poe means “Platform for Open Exploration.” It uses AI from big tech companies.
People can now talk back and forth with these chat helpers, getting fast answers. This is called better and easier to use, but many think it killed a good place made for people.
A new thing called Poe, with a lot of money from rich people, shows Quora gave up on real people. Quora used to be proud of real people writing, but now it’s a place for robot answers. Poe lets robots make money, so more robot writing happens instead of real people talking.
The big reason Quora is failing is a lesson. When you use robots to run a place for people, you forget robots are not as smart as real people. Robots are good at copying words, but not good at thinking, making good points, or knowing things. This is why Quora is bad now. One person said Quora changed from a smart people place to a robot writing factory.
YouTube and Facebook have the same trouble
Quora is not the only place with this problem. Other places like YouTube and Facebook have the same trouble. They want to use smart computers to help people find things and stop bad things, but the computers are not good at telling good things from bad things. They mix up real news with fake news, funny jokes with serious talks, and angry posts with helpful ones.
Smart computers can sometimes find cool new things that help us learn. But they can also cause problems. They can show bad things more than good things and make people stop trusting the place.
Quora is a good example. People who know a lot are leaving because the place is getting worse. The posts are silly and repeat themselves. New people who come to Quora don’t like what they see.
Quora is in big trouble. Old users are leaving, and new users aren’t joining. This is a bad mix. It looks like Quora can’t get better. It was a big mistake.
Now, not many people use Quora. It used to be a good place for smart talk, but not anymore. Quora showed us how the internet could be smart, but then it stopped.
I used to like Quora. Now I wonder: Can we make computers pick the good stuff online? Can computers know what is smart and what is just silly stuff?
How can we keep smart people talking online when computers can’t tell what is smart? Bad people will use computers to cheat.
Computers are good at some things, but they can’t think like us. We need real people to talk and think. Quora could have been great, but it’s not.
Other tech bosses should learn from Quora. Don’t just try to get lots of people to look at your site. Make it a place for smart things. We don’t want to lose all the smart stuff when we use computers too much.
