Synopsis
The main focus of the company has already shifted from the Q&A.
It is unlikely that Q&A will remain completely free. However, that will depend on how SE's business strategy pans out.
Details
It seems fairly obvious that SO.com have narrowed their perspective to the commercialization of the network:
Rolling out marketable products (Talent, Teams)
Advertising
Wooing prospective investors (witnessed by the cited interview)
Re-licensing of content
Prodding the 'community' towards corporate standards in communication and behavior
(one obvious objective: minimizing risk of legal exposure):
- CoC (sheer existence, enforcement rules)
- Feelgood environment ( 'welcoming', 'encouraging', etc. )
- Focus on community growth ( feelgood environment expressly aiming at new users)
- Consultation processes with the community (or the lack thereof)
Content treatment:
- 'Quality First' approach dropped
(as baffling as it may appear; but this kind of priority tends to be expensive)
- Professional appearance ( Ask Question Wizard, Beta labels dropped, UI design updates)
- Centralized content curation (3-vote closing threshold, HNQ management)
- Pro-active alienation avoidance (Reversal/Tumbleweed retired, Lifejacket/Lifeboat introduced, no automatic downvotes on LQ autoflag)
[Disclaimer: In the light of the current turmoil, measures to ascertain
that particular groups of users feel safe and welcome on SE are
not meant]
The degree of evidence varies between different items (notably subitem 3 and 4 of 'Content Treatment' are mostly fed by a gut feeling inspired by this breakdown of recent feature changes). In total, however, I have no doubt about the destination of the journey.
Conclusion
As for the future of the free Q&A section, I envisage 3 major routes.
1.) Direct commercialisation
Raising a paywall for the Q&A section would match the commercialisation strategy seen so far. A basic monthly fee to peruse the answers, an advanced plan to actually participate ( asking questions, voting ) and the full-fledged subscription for all features, rebates to reward participating in onerous activities on the network. That could become a technically sophisticated experts-exchange.com V2.
2.) Free playground for expert users
The Q&A stays free as a playground for expert users which will be targeted through Talent.
3.) Free demo for enterprise installations
The Q&A stays free as a showcase platform for Teams. Revenue will mainly be generated by Teams sales with branding and customization.
Models 1 and 2 would keep the Q&A section in the prime focus, possibly limited to the most profitable sites (though all sites will benefit due to spill-over effects). Model 3 in particular would probably entail curtailed opportunities of contributions for non-experts.
Model 3 would shift the focus away from Q&A.
Imho it's likely that the company will pursue all routes. The attention devoted to Q&A will then depend on the relative revenues generated from the business models. Future investors may push the management into a re-focus on a single business model in the future.
Disclaimer
This is just my personal view based on my experiences as a halfway regular on some SE sites and my own thoughts. I think the sketch represents fairly the situation, but I cannot be sure of that. In any case, nothing written is meant to challenge the right of SO.com to do as they see fit.
