Quora is just so much better than Ask MetaFilter, Reddit's Q&A/advice subreddits (/r/askreddit, /r/answers, /r/doesanybodyelse etc.), or (dare I say it) Yahoo Answers for nontrivial, factual answers dependent on expertise. Quora is for people who benefit from or enjoy such questions and answers. The longtime existence of all these Q&A communities shows that there is a market for it. There's the most overlap with Ask MeFi I think, but Quora is far better at zeroing in on a good answer, when it exists.
I have a lot of bad things to say about Reddit, but certain focused subreddits are excellent for getting good answers from experts. AskHistorians and AskScience are among the best available forums of their kind on the internet.
Part of my reluctance to use it is i'm not sure it's ever going to give the investors the return they demand, and I don't see it surviving or staying wholesome in the process.
This is increasingly my bar for participating in crowdsourced or user generated content based startups. How much is my investment of time and energy going to be squandered when they don't make it; how likely are they to make it.
I'm still pissed off at all the DailyBooth pictures just stuck in limbo because the management team lost interest post acqui-hire and haven't done anything to help folks get their data - valuable pictures capturing moments in time in some cases - back from the zombie company.
