Isn't it fascinating how even people that consider themselves rational and intelligent like developers would be happy doing work for a company for free in exchange for internet points?
People were contributing well before it was a top 10 website. That’s how it got kickstarted in the first place.
A group of volunteers builds a public park, putting in hours of work, landscaping, planting trees, and creating a beautiful space for everyone to enjoy.
Years later, the park’s manager fences it off, sells it for $1.8 billion, and pockets the money.
When questioned, the manager says, “So what? The volunteers enjoyed building it, and people got value from the park while it was open.”
1. What do you mean by "open"? If you're talking about the company, the park was private -- fenced off -- from the start; there was no "bait and switch". This is the part which is worth 1.8 billion dollars: the brand name, network, software and system.
2. What do you mean by "open"? If you're talking about the content licenses, then the park is still open and public to this day. This is valuable too, of course, but no one will buy CC-licensed content for 1.8 billion dollars. It's just in the commons.
Basically, while both the website and the content are valuable, the 1.8 billion dollars you're complaining about wasn't used to buy the content. Anyone can get that for free. It was used to buy the website, which has always been private and proprietary.
Your story would make more sense if StackExchange was a non-profit started by a group of volunteers which somehow got turned into a for-profit and sold to the benefit of a single person, or if they somehow re-licensed everyone's content into proprietary. But neither happened. And that's why it's a false analogy.
The brand, network, and proprietary systems you emphasize are valuable only because of the knowledge and content the community created.
The "bait and switch" lies in fostering a community-driven mission only to commoditize the platform for personal enrichment.
Is this how you'd characterise open source software contributions as well (minus the points, of course)?