This is really insightful. In some ways every community goes through the "wild west" -> settlers -> cities evolution. Happened with the internet at large, happens with most technologies that achieve mass adoption, and it appears to have happened with Wikipedia and Stackoverflow. (I read an interesting article about technology pioneers, settlers and other archetypes, but I couldn't find it.)
Once most of the pioneering work is done, and the low hanging articles are written, a community needs to decide how to proceed. Who are you going to maximize value for? In the early days it makes sense to focus on what is the rarest resource (in SO's case, probably the answerers) but as a community matures, the focus can shift. Now it is frankly the anonymous viewer that it makes sense to optimize for, both from a monetary standpoint (jobs display being a primary monetization strategy) and a social good standpoint (far more anonymous viewers than either askers or answerers).
Once most of the pioneering work is done, and the low hanging articles are written, a community needs to decide how to proceed. Who are you going to maximize value for? In the early days it makes sense to focus on what is the rarest resource (in SO's case, probably the answerers) but as a community matures, the focus can shift. Now it is frankly the anonymous viewer that it makes sense to optimize for, both from a monetary standpoint (jobs display being a primary monetization strategy) and a social good standpoint (far more anonymous viewers than either askers or answerers).