Reddit isn't comparable, as AI has not replaced human opinion.
This was the "stage 4 cancer" point of no return. Statistically, it chugged on for a while, and then the dips happened and people just blamed AI, when it was really just a zombie past this point.
Quora is still going on strong despite AI.
This doesn't hold up when looking at usage charts. There is a clear peak around ~2015 with a steady decline through to now. LLM's came to market in their current form in the last couple years, and took a couple years to be broadly adopted. There was a clear and obvious market fall off way before AI / LLM.
> Reddit isn't comparable
I agree with that in isolation; but since I don't agree with the AI premise this isn't especially relevant. I don't think AI will replace Reddit, I think one of the other major platforms will absorb it's users like Reddit / Hackerrank / better documentation / back searching absorbed SO's users through 2015-2021
As I said in my original post, LLM was the final nail in the coffin. I'm not arguing they aren't related. I'm saying they SO was falling long before LLM's took over. This isn't difficult logic.
You seem to think they weren't failing before LLM (simply rapidly losing member activity), which is a narrative that I won't follow.