Why I stopped writing on Quora...for now
Screen shot taken today
I recently stopped posting on Quora and I wanted to explain why.
I’ve been a faithful contributor to Quora since December 2017 when I first discovered the site. In that time, I’ve posted over 1,700 answers and I reached 11+ million views, and most recently, I became popular in automotive circles because of the cars I’ve owned and the huge interest in the topic. That accounts for most of the 2.3 million views this month alone. There are about 100 enthusiastic automotive readers to every single business reader. I never link to E@RTC which I co-founded and still run operationally.
I came to Substack a few months ago because there was no good business format to expand answers with serious readers on the topic of business. I’d been working on a book for some time and I needed a format for chapters. Substack seemed like a better place than Medium to get away from the noise. On Quora, you’re buried in a sea of similar answers so there were few comparative business readers, regardless of the hours I put into the answer. It was turning into a waste of time, so I slowed down my writing answers between November 2021 and July 2022 until I started to get questions about other topics.
Because of E@RTC, I got a few questions directed at me about cars and that took off. It didn’t take long for me to get to 2.3 million views a month. I recently started putting the line “Find me on Substack” at the end of my posts because I’m a writer and I want to expand on various topics that interest me. I didn’t link to Middlerock or E@RTC, no, I sometimes added a link, sometimes not, and not on every answer. On Quora, there is no such format to freeform write as I am on Substack unless I want to post my own question. That seems lame. I don’t get to write what I want to write about along the same topics on Quora as I can on Substack.
Apparently, that was a draconian violation of Quora’s “Terms and Conditions,” and the penalty was deleting at least 50 of my answers that had tens of thousands of views and hundreds of contributing comments. I’m guessing that took more than 30 hours of my time to both research and write those answers, not including all the other hundreds of people who contributed. Not only am I penalized, but so are all the tens of thousands of readers who took the time to comment and discuss the various topics! This is ultra-dumb and undoubtedly set up by the Dolores Umbridge of Quora. For you Quora analysts, this is what I often talk about as a symptom of weak management. Don’t ignore it! Who knew Substack was such a threat!
At no time did Quora just write me and ask me to remove the line. That would have been the decent, simple, no, adult, normal, customer, contributor-centric thing to do and no big deal. No-no, instead some moderator goes heavy handed and just deletes everything then tells me in just three posts what the appeal process is. I don’t think it’s a real human answering so it’s like talking to a wall anyway.
In my opinion, Quora is struggling and for good reason. Many of the great writers I know stopped contributing because, well there is nothing in it for them to continue. Why do it? Quora knew retaining real writers was a problem so they created a weak monetization plan that competes with free. People prefer free. I opted out of the program months ago. The revenue wasn’t worth the loss of views or my time. I doubt the subscription numbers are good. We’d have heard about it by now. So, I’m asking myself, why bother?
You see their monetization plan weakness in their attempts to raise money, and on their LinkedIn stats. Friends in VC circles told me they are not an attractive investment. According to CB Insights, Quora hasn’t raised any money since Q2 2019 in a Series D-II of $60 million, with no reported valuation. In 2017 it was a valuation of $1.8 billion based on what they thought was a bright future. That’s five years ago. A raise that old off of the first Series D is dinosaur numbers in tech, and I doubt the valuation number has improved much, but who knows. I could be surprised. But, where’s the buzz?
I have no way of knowing if the next round is a major down round. Revenues in 2018 were reported in two places as $8 million and $20 million and one place posted much higher but chances are all are wrong. There is no chatter anywhere. In all my years on Quora, I never once clicked an ad, so where is the revenue coming from? Subscribers? Hardly, as they clearly don’t value the very writers who’d attract subscribers. I’m surprised if gross revenues would be $20 million, but that’s me. I can’t find more recent evidence that it’s a lot higher, but who knows with subscribers. This would be good topic for CB Insights to pick apart. I’ll make that request.
I don’t believe Quora can be a success because of how they treat their most faithful contributors. We are the brand. They are the stewards of the brand.
Never go by what a company says, go by what they do. Heavy moderation tells a big story. They don’t value loyalty. They don’t value long contributors and they don’t value readers.
Eventually with this core guiding attitude on display, other writers will get treated badly over something similar and they too will say, screw-it, why bother? Don’t believe me? Google it! Longterm contributors are the brand. The moderators are like shitty small town bureaucrats writing bad policy out of sheer terror of losing control.
If you look at analytics in other places like LinkedIn, it shows Quora with no real headcount growth since the last round. They have changed policies and directions a number of times, all to find revenue would be my guess. Complaints are overwhelmingly about their moderators yet they do nothing. No surprise there. They have no idea how to build and sustain culture.
LinkedIn shows flat hiring and not many open positions. This doesn’t bode well for a company with a bright future. This is more like white knuckles on the edge of a cliff so who cares about brand value or sustainable culture when it’s in a weakened state.
Insiders have told me that the problem with revenues has to do with a lack of advertisers willing to pay when so much of the readership is India and Africa and emerging markets where there is little benefit to mainstream advertisers. It’s a lot of foreign eyeballs who can’t afford much. They aren’t subscribers either.
I think the problem has to do with the brand itself. Treat trusted writers badly who are the backbone of the brand and what’s the value of an answer? Do you think new writers are trusted as much as old? Apparently Quora doesn’t care and doesn’t think I bring much value, so fine, lesson learned. They think their draconian moderation policies are a winning formula, I think it’s a symptom of lack of community awareness. Take a look at the number of Quora page likes on Facebook, then look at the likes on the actual posts. Two? Is that one person with two thumbs? Two?
Okay, so what would I do if I were running Quora? After building large sustainable communities in my career, I’d do the simple decent thing. Write me and say, don’t post the link, restore the answers and we’re done. Simple. I can even edit the posts. Nope, that’s way too easy. That’s too much common sense piled up right there. This experience is the best evidence I can give you of deep mismanagement and their current status as a company comes as no surprise.
Good luck Quora. I’ll go do something else with my time for now.