I can 100% guarantees you that Quora didn’t die because of people who didn’t want to run JavaScript or be able to access it over Tor.
It's hard to me to see how a site with a vision like Quora (had) can continue existing for long after they start ignoring accessibility issues.
Sounds like I should be looking for a Stack Overflow alternative too.
(I'm suspecting that this might be related to the recent issue of better accessibility also making it easier to abuse for neural network based abusers, and it certainly looks like a hard problem to solve for the most popular websites.)
I am wondering what you mean by "success" of a company here? Is that purely financial success? Or rate of growth or something like that?
But they are not the only things that define the success of a person, or a company. WOuld you agree?
SO went to hell when they started demanding ready to copy paste answers instead of 'teach the man how to fish' answers.
"They're also driving away contributors with more altruistic motivations"
Now, I can agree with that, because I see a very strong alignment between the set of people who strongly uphold their own values and have self-respect, and those who stand up for the rights of others and have something to give.
The "walled garden" internet basically drives away people who give a fuck.
I liken people like this to the Amish. They balk at modernity as being incompatible with their beliefs. So they withdraw from the world and live life as they see fit.
What they don’t do is go around all the time yelling at people telling them how their lifestyle is wrong or constantly telling other people how they don’t use certain technologies.
I'm intellectually curious, what you're so deeply invested in that was just threatened?
What I hear is that Javascript is a means of speed and power to you. And for you, forgoing that power would serve no useful purpose. Do I understand that correctly?
What I am wondering is, do you think that for other people, they should, maybe even must, feel the same way? Even if they are very pleased just listening to the radio?
Does Javascript really mean something important to you?
It serves no useful purpose
No useful purpose to who?
Now I suspect you'll want to tell me how actually Javascript is perfectly safe... and that's a conversation we can save for another day for the sake of both our dignity and friendship. I'm afraid it's my job to know otherwise.
If you knew about that many exploits in the wild, surely you could (white hat) tell the company who created the browser or (black hat) make a lot of money by selling it to three letter agencies or private companies that sell it to three letter agencies.
However, in the real world, a fully patched Android or iOS operating system - especially one that is in “lock down mode” is not any more susceptible to Zero day exploits than the number of other exploitable parts of the OS that you also don’t have any control over.
And even if you only run open source software, how long was the OpenSSL bug in operating systems before it was discovered?
Do you use your mobile’s messaging system? That’s been one of the primary targets of exploits that will target you directly.