Developers seem to be ditching StackOverflow since ChatGPT launch, stats show

According to information from web site visitors monitoring platform SimilarWeb, Naspers-owned developer knowledge-sharing platform Stack Overflow has seen its visitors plummet since the launch of OpenAI’s dialog AI device ChatGPT.

SimilarWeb’s information exhibits that StackOverflow has dropped virtually 30 positions within the “Programming and Developer Software” web sites class, falling from the 202nd place in October 2022 to 229th by the tip of December 2022. This is StackOverflow’s lowest rating in that class since October 2019.

In phrases of absolute web site visits, StackOverflow has seen its numbers drop from virtually 279 million in November 2022 to 247 million by the tip of December 2022, an virtually 12% lower in only a month.

In December, a number of weeks after the launch of ChatGPT, StackOverflow introduced that it had banned the usage of the AI device’s generated as solutions on the platform, citing considerations concerning the accuracy of such solutions.

“…because the average rate of getting correct answers from ChatGPT is too low, the posting of answers created by ChatGPT is substantially harmful to the site and to users who are asking or looking for correct answers,” Stack Overflow mentioned in a press release.

Stack Overflow went on to state that due to the recognition of the ChatGPT device, a whole lot of customers are posting these code snippets which then places a whole lot of stress on its volunteer-based high quality curation infrastructure. To cut back the inflow of those ChatGPT responses, it took the choice to quickly ban the usage of ChatGPT to create posts with bans being imposed on customers who didn’t adhere to the rule.

With OpenAI yesterday saying that it had up to date ChatGPT with “improved factuality and mathematical capabilities”, issues usually are not wanting up for StackOverflow, which makes nearly all of its income from advertisements working on the web site.

Naspers-owned Prosus acquired Stack Overflow in June 2021 for $1.8 billion, a deal each corporations described as mutually useful. According to Naspers’ most up-to-date monetary outcomes, the platform grew income by 33% within the first half of 2022, to $45 million.