A Stack Overflow user's reply to Experts Exchange blogpost

With all the interest currently focused on Q&#38;A sites, Experts Exchange actually presents an interesting turnaround opportunity. Despite the last few years of squandering goodwill with their deceptive solution to the findability/paywall paradox, they are still one of the longtime residents of the space, and they still have a massive -- albeit creaky -- corpus of questions and answers. They should hire a strong UX/UI team and do a clean-sheet redesign: new logo, new zen-like appearance without all the noisy clutter, logos, UI "junk", fake blurred out answers with "sign up now!", etc. They should set up a strong information design and analysis team to mine that huge corpus for opportunities to segment their product into paid and free components -- and then update the business model to a legitimate "freemium" approach.<p>I realize this is all easier said than done, but it does seem like there must be real value under the barnacles. Every time someone scrolls down past screen after screen of ads and blurred answers and has their "I see what you did there" moment, goodwill is squandered and the community impression of deception and spamminess builds.

Experts Exchange's need to talk about Stack Overflow is a sign of the shifting dynamic between the two sites and that they feel the need to make it negative indicates, to me at least, the relative strength of the two sites.<p>The issue is that EE is having to justify $12.95 a month worth of value over SO and, as a user of both sites, it seems to me that for a vast majority of people that value simply doesn't exist. Yes there is a free option but it's so badly hidden that it's clearly not something they have any real interest in and feels like it's there purely so they can say it's there. If that's not the case then then put it next to the various paid options.<p>Like many companies before them, they've found that their market has changed. What was previously a salable product is now something that is available for free (or at least something broadly comparable is available for free).<p>To be clear I have no issue with EE's right to charge for their service, I just think it's doomed to failure when the guy down the road doesn't.<p>There seem to be two options from here:<p>1) Tough it out and hope that SO doesn't last and that they can keep going with their existing business model. Suggesting that SO is going to run out of money sooner or later is fine. Maybe it will, maybe it won't but don't expect me to pay for your service while they are there and don't charge. That's the reality EE needs to deal with and if that's their strategy they need to hunker down and dig deep because it's going to cost them in the short term.<p>2) Look for a new business model. Either something totally new or at the very least a tweak to what they're doing now. No idea what it is, if I did I'd probably be doing it myself, but it seems to me that a new reality demands a new model and that simply denying that is railing against the dying of the light.<p>Maybe there is another choice they can look at but whatever it is, I don't think bad mouthing the competition is going to cut it.

There are lots of lessons here. Basically EE acted with hubris because they saw themselves as the only game in town. SO came along and quickly dethroned them in the programming arena (EE has a somewhat broader base than that).<p>Charging people for user-generated content is a shortsighted and doomed business model. What's more it's sleazy. I'm reminded of the whole CDDB/Gracenote fiasco from years ago.<p>Chris Dixon wrote a great blog post about this [1].<p>EE in this context (or the "evil hyphen site" as Joel calls it) is acting as an extractor. They're simply putting up a barrier and charging a toll.<p>Compare this to companies like Dropbox and Evernote. These companies provide pretty amazing services (particularly Dropbox) for free. I've seen many people say they pay for Dropbox not because they need the space but because they want to give them money for their amazing services. These companies are builders.<p>And let's not forget that EE earned a lot of bad will by once being free like SO and switching to this hideous pseud-paywall monstrosity. Treat your users like crap and they go elsewhere. Quelle surprise.<p>[1]: <a href="http://cdixon.org/2010/06/19/builders-and-extractors/" rel="nofollow">http://cdixon.org/2010/06/19/builders-and-extractors/</a>

I used to just ignore any Experts Exchange items in search results, although since discovering the ability to scroll down for the answer I do now find EE worthwhile. However I feel far, far more fond of StackOverflow and wish them continued success.

The reply from Brutus Lyon[1] does not even warrant a response because everything about it feels wrong. Anyway here goes:<p><i>&#62;&#62; EE has always had a free registration at <a href="https://secure.experts-exchange.com/registerExpert.jsp" rel="nofollow">https://secure.experts-exchange.com/registerExpert.jsp</a> . That people choose to not use it isn't EE's fault.</i><p>Your fault is hiding the link from users and sending them to <a href="https://secure.experts-exchange.com/register.jsp?rsid=60&#38;redirectURL=/" rel="nofollow">https://secure.experts-exchange.com/register.jsp?rsid=60&#38...</a> when clicking on the sign-up page. This kind of behavior is extremely offensive and hostile especially considering the fact that your users are from a demographic who can easily see through your BS.<p><i>&#62;&#62; EE's record, the last I saw, was seven SECONDS. I've seen at least a dozen under 20 seconds. Sometimes you get lucky.</i><p>With StackOverflow, I always get lucky. With EE, I <i>have</i> to get lucky to get a good answer (or even to see the answer behind all your paywall and ads).<p><i>&#62;&#62; You think voting helps you get the right answer; I think it's arrogant and rude that someone else tells you what works best for you.</i><p>WHAT? You ask a question because you want help and don't know what works for you. How is answering that question arrogant and rude? (Voting is also an special type of answering mechanism).<p>Sometimes the most voted answer may not solve your problem, but tell you that what you are trying to do is wrong. I think votes let you know which of the solutions to consider before trying out any of the solutions.<p><i>&#62;&#62; You think "everything should be free"; I think you charge for your services, and EE has every right to charge for its.</i><p>Except that you charge for the content your users created not knowing in advance that you guys will make it a closed system.<p><i>&#62;&#62; EE is successful because it only promises what it can provide, and keeps that promise.</i><p>EE <i>was</i> successful. You are not growing and will go down soon if you continue with your attitude: <a href="http://i.imgur.com/Vm1on.png" rel="nofollow">http://i.imgur.com/Vm1on.png</a><p>And what promise do you keep? I didn't know that providing different content to Google and to your visitors is your way of keeping promises.<p><i>&#62;&#62; When the $5 million in VC money runs out, then SO will have to get money from someone -- which means ads or a paywall.</i><p>All of SO content is in CC license. If they go rogue, the community will just create a new website with the same content.<p>Basically all this boils down to what kind of people run the site. I am sorry that the people behind EE cannot see the future.<p>[1] <a href="http://blog.williamhilsum.com/2011/02/response-to-experts-exchange-blog-post.html?showComment=1297831818465#c2487540992635813811" rel="nofollow">http://blog.williamhilsum.com/2011/02/response-to-experts-ex...</a>

The one valid point in the original EE blogpost for me is what is the SO/SE business model.<p>I'm assuming that there is one, I don't believe Joel and Jeff are stupid, it's just not clear to me what it is.

Experts Exchange was the first site to come into my mind when I first heard about Google's Personal Blocker.

(Comment I wrote on my blog)...<p>Just got an anonymous email - no idea if anyone can verify the truth behind it...<p><a href="http://i.imgur.com/BDuMM.png" rel="nofollow">http://i.imgur.com/BDuMM.png</a><p>"here is no such person as Brutus Lyon, it is Jenn Prentice from Experts Exchange. She always does shit like this under aliases."<p>I assumed Brutus was working or staff from EE, I don't see why a fake name is needed or the reason behind it / how it changes anything.

You know guys, I love Stack Overflow. It's always been an enormous help whenever I had a question that someone had an answer for.<p>But because I earned more than 1.500 reputation scores ( <a href="http://stackoverflow.com/users/69424/pestaa" rel="nofollow">http://stackoverflow.com/users/69424/pestaa</a> ), I feel I have the right to say, the atmosphere does not just feel right as the author states.<p>Here's how I feel (see the comments):<p><a href="http://stackoverflow.com/questions/4131707/mysql-i-have-two-large-fields-which-when-records-are-looped-and-displayed-make/4131753#4131753" rel="nofollow">http://stackoverflow.com/questions/4131707/mysql-i-have-two-...</a><p>If someone's astounded by seeing a sensible answer on SO, something's wrong.<p>Hacker News works so much better by putting far less emphasis on karma, and that's why I decided to contribute to HN, and not SO anymore.

What I want to know is, did Lyon make that post because he has actually deluded himself into thinking that EE is still relevant, or because he thought someone would actually be oblivious enough to read it and stop using StackExchange?<p>I'm not sure which one reflects more poorly on him.

I don't understand why ExpertsExchange is still in business. How can a Q&#38;A site live by asking for a credit card?

simple questions are already answered (most of them on S.O.). unfortunately i used to ask questions that has no answer so i just almost stopped asking them.

when did people start using the word "Whilst"? This guy's obviously not British...

Dude, I still don't see why such a response is even needed.<p>a) EE is the reason people wanted to block sites from google results.<p>b) EE never has useful info even if you scroll down<p>conclusion: IDK how EE even made money to begin with. I guess on the suckers. Because I feel that if I sign up I am throwing my money away since nobody is else who I want answers from is dumb enough to sign up.<p>Furthermore, seeing as how forums are Q&#38;A places as well, and sites scrub forums like mad to "generate content" I have zero proof that EE is in any way genuine content.

I find it astounding the level to which people <i>hate</i> Experts Exchange. Calling them "sleazy" and "slimeballs". Where does all this vitriole come from?<p>Are you all feeling so entitled that anytime someone wants to charge you for something your automatic reaction is hatred?<p>Here's the problem that EE solved (a long time ago): "How can I create a Q&#38;A site that runs on a subscription, not an ad supported, model?". The obvious dilemma being that the content needs to be indexed by search engines which necessitates giving it away for free, but when people come into the site you want them to pay for the service.<p>The solution of having people scroll to the bottom of the page isn't deceptive, it's just an imperfect solution to making people pay to use your site. The fact that you can get the answers for free at all is the anomaly - you're not supposed to be able to!<p>There's absolutely nothing wrong with wanting to charge for anything. If it works, it works, if it doesn't work, your business fails. EE aren't breaking any laws, hell they aren't even breaking any <i>guidelines</i>. If you don't like it, you don't continue, there's a free trial.<p>This isn't spam, it's not hurting or hoodwinking or deceiving anyone! This is just a paid service, get over it.<p>When Mark Bao created a viral marketing campaign to collect a few hundred thousand email addresses and then sell them at private auction everyone here heaped praise on him like he split the atom. Experts Exchange is just running a business and charging a price. If their business sucks then it will die - admittedly there is a hell of a lot of inertia there now because they've been going for so long but WHATEVER! You can't just call people sleazy slimeballs because they're charging for a service rather than giving it away.<p>Oh and for all you folks saying they don't promote their free signup page enough, look at the fine print below the pricing on this page:<p><a href="http://highrisehq.com/signup" rel="nofollow">http://highrisehq.com/signup</a><p>What a sanctimonious and judgmental crowd we have here at HN!