Although I agree that Stack[Overflow|Exchange] will never been a mainstream site, I think there's an important difference in that SO is very useful to the community that it does support.
They've really nailed the technical question 'problem' to the point that my day-to-day job would be measurably harder without it, and so as the poster says I can easily imagine paying for added-value features there.
Quora, not so much. Although I really doubt the solution is to add more eye-candy to the page design. Sheesh, web designers. ;-)
"The site is visually bland: there’s barely any color or images, and you won’t find any effect fancier than rounded corners."
Somebody please save us from the attack of web design. If I see another gradient rounded flashing Javascript-enabled button for gradient rounded flashing Javascript-enabled buttons' sake, I'm gonna hurl, Wayne's World style.
agreed. look at craigslist - about as unsexy a design as you could imagine, but it solves real problems for people, and they use it constantly. quora - not so much, and fancier buttons and UI won't really change that.
They've really nailed the technical question 'problem' to the point that my day-to-day job would be measurably harder without it, and so as the poster says I can easily imagine paying for added-value features there.
Quora, not so much. Although I really doubt the solution is to add more eye-candy to the page design. Sheesh, web designers. ;-)