"What does a new user need" was not what you previously asked.

it's unsurprisingly clear that what makes a good homepage experience for a new user doesn’t necessarily make an exceptional homepage for more established curators

Why ignore the new users though? You explicitly asked was "What makes a homepage useful for logged-in users". The elephant in the room is what SO actually looks like to a new first-time user which is not yet logged in, simply because they are indeed a new user:

The spontaneous reaction most people get when opening a site and it fills your screen with pop-ups is "Eeew go away!" Overall this screams unprofessionalism as well as "paywall".

Historically, sites that spammed pop-ups in the user's face were sites where you would also be likely to get viruses or malware. More recently, they are also likely sites that track you with some 20+ different forms of spyware and tracing cookies. Which isn't just prejudices it turns out, because my privacy add-ons report 6 trackers - and notably that happens before I've yet clicked accept/decline cookies.

"Paywall" because it insists at no less than 7 places that I log in, sign up, "try for free" or go for "full business solutions". This is clearly a site quite desperately trying to sell me something - it does not at all look like a site I can use for free. Scrolling down further reveals that the site also wants to sell me advertising and "API solutions for business", whatever that is.

Furthermore it says "AI" all over the place which suggests it might be some manner of click bait site and not related to programming, which was what the new user was most likely interested in and how they ended up here.

Other SE sites are far less off-putting than SO, because on those sites you will at least be taken directly to Q&A (though still hidden behind the pop-ups). Taking a look at some other random site in the network, it looks far more appealing:

The down side in going directly to Q&A is an immediate increase in trackers. I get up to 11 of them on the other site. On SO I have to enter Q&A to get the same number, so the SO front page is admittedly at least better at hiding some of its malicious intentions. The number of trackers might be one metric that people in general and programmers in particular use when determine if they should use a site or GTFO.

Naively, I would think that a site without any malicious intentions would be more attractive to users new or old.

Summary: the SO front page displayed to new users is designed for mistrust and to drive new users away. If I personally would land at a site like that from a search engine, I'll immediately close it down and move on.

It may be interesting to investigate if there's a relation between the user decline on SO compared to when the new front page was launched. And if other SE sites are facing the same user decline too or if they are doing better than SO at keeping new users.

"What does a new user need" was not what you previously asked.

it's unsurprisingly clear that what makes a good homepage experience for a new user doesn’t necessarily make an exceptional homepage for more established curators

Why ignore the new users though? You explicitly asked "What makes a homepage useful for logged-in users". The elephant in the room is what SO actually looks like to a new first-time user which is not yet logged in, simply because they are indeed a new user:

The spontaneous reaction most people get when opening a site and it fills your screen with pop-ups is "Eeew go away!" Overall this screams unprofessionalism as well as "paywall".

Historically, sites that spammed pop-ups in the user's face were sites where you would also be likely to get viruses or malware. More recently, they are also likely sites that track you with some 20+ different forms of spyware and tracing cookies. Which isn't just prejudices it turns out, because my privacy add-ons report 6 trackers - and notably that happens before I've yet clicked accept/decline cookies.

"Paywall" because it insists at no less than 7 places that I log in, sign up, "try for free" or go for "full business solutions". This is clearly a site quite desperately trying to sell me something - it does not at all look like a site I can use for free. Scrolling down further reveals that the site also wants to sell me advertising and "API solutions for business", whatever that is.

Furthermore it says "AI" all over the place which suggests it might be some manner of click bait site and not related to programming, which was what the new user was most likely interested in and how they ended up here.

Other SE sites are far less off-putting than SO, because on those sites you will at least be taken directly to Q&A (though still hidden behind the pop-ups). Taking a look at some other random site in the network, it looks far more appealing:

The down side in going directly to Q&A is an immediate increase in trackers. I get up to 11 of them on the other site. On SO I have to enter Q&A to get the same number, so the SO front page is admittedly at least better at hiding some of its malicious intentions. The number of trackers might be one metric that people in general and programmers in particular use when determine if they should use a site or GTFO.

Naively, I would think that a site without any malicious intentions would be more attractive to users new or old.

Summary: the SO front page displayed to new users is designed for mistrust and to drive new users away. If I personally would land at a site like that from a search engine, I'll immediately close it down and move on.

It may be interesting to investigate if there's a relation between the user decline on SO compared to when the new front page was launched. And if other SE sites are facing the same user decline too or if they are doing better than SO at keeping new users.

"What does a new user need" was not what you previously asked.

it's unsurprisingly clear that what makes a good homepage experience for a new user doesn’t necessarily make an exceptional homepage for more established curators

Why ignore the new users though? You explicitly asked was "What makes a homepage useful for logged-in users". The elephant in the room is what SO actually looks like to a new first-time user which is not yet logged in, simply because they are indeed a new user:

The spontaneous reaction most people get when opening a site and it fills your screen with pop-ups is "Eeew go away!" Overall this screams unprofessionalism as well as "paywall".

Historically, sites that spammed pop-ups in the user's face were sites where you would also be likely to get viruses or malware. More recently, they are also likely sites that track you with some 20+ different forms of spyware and tracing cookies. Which isn't just prejudices it turns out, because by privacy add-ons report 6 trackers - and notably that happens before I've yet clicked accept/decline cookies.

"Paywall" because it insists at no less than 7 places that I log in, sign up, "try for free" or go for "full business solutions". This is clearly a site quite desperately trying to sell me something - it does not at all look like a site I can use for free. Scrolling down further reveals that the site also wants to sell me advertising and "API solutions for business", whatever that is.

Furthermore it says "AI" all over the place which suggests it might be some manner of click bait site and not related to programming, which was what the new user was most likely interested in and how they ended up here.

Other SE sites are far less off-putting than SO, because on those sites you will at least be taken directly to Q&A (though still hidden behind the pop-ups). Taking a look at some other random site in the network, it looks far more appealing:

The down side in going directly to Q&A is an immediate increase in trackers. I get up to 11 of them on the other site. On SO I have to enter Q&A to get the same number, so the SO front page is admittedly at least better at hiding some of its malicious intentions. The number of trackers might be one metric that people in general and programmers in particular use when determine if they should use a site or GTFO.

Summary: the SO front page displayed to new users is designed for mistrust and to drive new users away. If I personally would land at a site like that from a search engine, I'll immediately close it down and move on.

It may be interesting to investigate if there's a relation between the user decline on SO compared to when the new front page was launched. And if other SE sites are facing the same user decline too or if they are doing better than SO at keeping new users.

"What does a new user need" was not what you previously asked.

it's unsurprisingly clear that what makes a good homepage experience for a new user doesn’t necessarily make an exceptional homepage for more established curators

Why ignore the new users though? You explicitly asked was "What makes a homepage useful for logged-in users". The elephant in the room is what SO actually looks like to a new first-time user which is not yet logged in, simply because they are indeed a new user:

The spontaneous reaction most people get when opening a site and it fills your screen with pop-ups is "Eeew go away!" Overall this screams unprofessionalism as well as "paywall".

Historically, sites that spammed pop-ups in the user's face were sites where you would also be likely to get viruses or malware. More recently, they are also likely sites that track you with some 20+ different forms of spyware and tracing cookies. Which isn't just prejudices it turns out, because my privacy add-ons report 6 trackers - and notably that happens before I've yet clicked accept/decline cookies.

"Paywall" because it insists at no less than 7 places that I log in, sign up, "try for free" or go for "full business solutions". This is clearly a site quite desperately trying to sell me something - it does not at all look like a site I can use for free. Scrolling down further reveals that the site also wants to sell me advertising and "API solutions for business", whatever that is.

Furthermore it says "AI" all over the place which suggests it might be some manner of click bait site and not related to programming, which was what the new user was most likely interested in and how they ended up here.

Other SE sites are far less off-putting than SO, because on those sites you will at least be taken directly to Q&A (though still hidden behind the pop-ups). Taking a look at some other random site in the network, it looks far more appealing:

The down side in going directly to Q&A is an immediate increase in trackers. I get up to 11 of them on the other site. On SO I have to enter Q&A to get the same number, so the SO front page is admittedly at least better at hiding some of its malicious intentions. The number of trackers might be one metric that people in general and programmers in particular use when determine if they should use a site or GTFO.

Naively, I would think that a site without any malicious intentions would be more attractive to users new or old.

Summary: the SO front page displayed to new users is designed for mistrust and to drive new users away. If I personally would land at a site like that from a search engine, I'll immediately close it down and move on.

It may be interesting to investigate if there's a relation between the user decline on SO compared to when the new front page was launched. And if other SE sites are facing the same user decline too or if they are doing better than SO at keeping new users.