Jeff,
It’s interesting that your raise this spectre. I presume you figured it was better to take the initiative before the community wakes up?
To all those ‘happy’ commenters out there it’s very simple: Stack Overflow is not an equitable transaction. If it was, then by definition it would be non-profit making.
All the users who claim they are getting more out than they put in… well they are, by definition, the exception.
Please remember that SO is making lots of money, and it’s growing.
How is it growing? It’s positive feedback - the more questions are asked and asnwered, the more google juice, the community grows etc.
Stack Overflow is a massive pot of gold.
And Jeff is not stupid. Not only does Stack Overflow LEVERAGE the community for monetary gain… Jeff is smart enough to know he can LEVERAGE the product and repackage it in many many forms (Super User, Server Fault etc)…this is leverage of leverage… you cannot get more profitable than that!
OK, so Jeff will become a millionaire. He has put hard work in and built some good software.
I beleive Jeff should be rewarded for his efforts in writing the software… but leverage is a perverse thing. Using Stack Overflow (i.e. its community) Jeff can make MUCH more money than one man alone can make by straight hours worked. And I beleive there are limits to the riches we should feel comfortable gained through human leverage.
Don’t forget it’s the community that has donated 100% of the content which makes up stack overflow, free of charge. Jeff is leveraging the community. Simple.
I guess my question is Jeff… what are you going to do with all your millions? I suppose being an intelligent guy you will quickly realise there are only so many plastic guitars you can buy before it gets boring.
So what’s the grand plan?