Yahoo, which is now part of Verizon Media Group following the company’s sale to the telecom for nearly $5 billion in 2017, announced the change at the top of the Yahoo Answers homepage. The message links to a FAQ page, which details the timeline of the shutdown—starting April 20th, the platform will no longer accept new submissions.
Users will also have until June 30th to request their data. After that, it will be inaccessible. That includes "all user-generated content including your Questions list, Questions, Answers list, Answers, and any images," Yahoo said, but "you won't be able to download other users' content, questions, or answers."
Given the circumstances, you could say Yahoo Answers Now is about to become a precious time capsule.
A note sent to active Yahoo Answers members provided them with a little more detail as to why Yahoo is shutting down the platform, saying that "it has become less popular over the years" and that the company "decided to shift our resources away" from the product to "focus on products that better serve our members."
"We launched Yahoo Answers sixteen years ago to help people around the world connect and share information," the message said. "With you and millions of other users, we built the best place on the web to ask and answer questions on a variety of topics, creating a community of global knowledge sharing. While we could not have been prouder of what we accomplished together, we are reaching out today to let you know that we have decided to shut down Yahoo Answers on May 4th, 2021."
"While Yahoo Answers war once a key part of Yahoo’s products and services, it has become less popular over the years as the needs of our members have changed," the message continued. "To that end, we have decided to shift our resources away from Yahoo Answers to focus on products that better serve our members and deliver on Yahoo’s promise of providing premium trusted content."
"Starting on April 20th you will no longer be able to post any new questions or answers. However, you can still view any posted questions and answers until May 4th. On May 4th the site will be shutting down. If you would like to download a copy of your questions and answers you have posted, you can do this by signing into Your Privacy Dashboard and requesting a download. You will be able to do this until June 30th, 2021 after which your Yahoo Answers data will be securely deleted and no longer available. The closure of Yahoo Answers will not affect your Yahoo account or other Yahoo services. For further information and instructions on how to download your data, please visit our Frequently Asked Questions."
"Thank you for contributing to Yahoo Answers — we’re proud and honored to have helped you connect with and learn from the Yahoo community these past sixteen years. If you’d like to provide feedback, please feel free to reach out to our team."
As The Verge pointed out, the fact that Yahoo Answers has become a meeting place for far-right individuals may have also contributed to its demise.
Whatever the true reasons are, it's hard to argue with Justin McElroy, a co-host of the comedy podcast 'My Brother, My Brother and Me,' who said that Yahoo Answers was a place for people to put questions they were too embarrassed to ask the people they knew in real life. "The weird, the dumb, the truly, truly demented: it all found a place on Yahoo Answers."
