I think it is dying and my bet for the reason why would be the policy changes.

Take it as you might, but I think the main reason many people were answering questions in the first place is the feeling of competition and wanting to establish oneself as someone with knowledge. This included gaining high scores and for some reason correlated with being quite blunt in the comments. But SO changes a few years ago made it so that asking questions got the same amount of points as answering them. Also people were forced to play nice with the new-comers who didn't even bother reading the rules of the site. And with these changes the whole atmosphere changed from being "a database of questions and answers" to just a site where people ask for free help.