I was asking myself similar questions after finding that the survey results bore little resemblance to what I've encountered in the US software industry in the last few years (I've been at it for decades). My first hunch is that the results say more about SO survey takers than about the actual software industry - similar to how various political polls (e.g. FoxNews, Politico) seem skewed towards the bias of the polling organization. My second hunch is that it's a big world, and I and my colleagues may just inhabit a bubble far from the center of the bell curve.

These days, the only time I drop into SO is when a "how do you do that again?" search yields a relevant-looking question asked within the last year or so. As often as not, the search leads me to a blog post or primary source (e.g. mozilla javascript documentation). But when I do make it to SO, I find that it's still a bustling community full of legitimate expert guidance.