StackOverflow simply discourages contribution. Which saves me time that I might otherwise spend submitting thoughtful answers on StackOverflow.
StackOverflow's priorities shown through this gating make little sense to me, and they spectacularly fail at communicating to new users what the norms of the site are, which is one big reason why so many people have a story of a bad experience of it.
I think these things turn out to be a bit important.