I've been a StackOverflow user since it started, I've been a member for over 3 years, and I can't comment on an answer because I only have 46 rep. I'm sure I hit the site everyday finding value in it, when I started at my last job they gave me a tour of their Android work and joked it was made by StackOverflow. The site is difficult to use, everywhere I click it says I need n more rep to use a piece of functionality.
It is intentional that new users are steered towards answers instead of comments. SO is a question & answers site and comments are mostly meant for clarifications, not for discussion. This is something that new users that are used to how forums work are not expecting. The hope is that by the time they have 50 reputation, they understand a bit more how comments should be used on the site.
There are additional reasons, the existing moderator tools would not be sufficient to deal with the kind of abuse that would be possible if anyone could post comments, there is simply no meaningful review of new comments on old posts.
And acquiring 50 reputation is generally not hard, that is 10 upvotes on questions, 5 upvotes on answers or 25 suggested edits that improve other posts. You could also earn 200 reputation on any other Stack Exchange site and be able to comment on all of them.
That makes sense, it would be nice if there was a linked site for discussion though. As a lurker my first instinct to dip my toes in the water is to comment on something first.
If you've been "active" for 3 years then it should have been trivial to build up enough points to do anything you want to do. You have to contribute, not just consume.
I'm in the same boat. Been a member for years but can't really figure out how to contribute.
All of a sudden I find myself having something of value to add, and I want to post a comment, and it says I can't. So I have to wonder, how do I even get rep if it won't let me add value?
Why not let EVERYONE comment but it hides comments from people with low rep by default. Anyone can view those comments, but people with enough rep can also add points to us low-reppers who just wanted to add a comment.
You need to ask questions to earn reputation. When somebody answers, you earn a good chunk. The more engagement your question earns, the more rep you earn. Then you can branch out.
1. If you are developer, i recommend you to earn more reputation.
2. Once you gain some reputation, you will understand why `points` are an important factor to use functionality. It is a good step.
3. Not to forget, since the quality of the question is degrading it also means that it is easy to answer questions on these days since the questions are asked in a different way but usually have same answer.
I think you've inadvertently explained part of the problem here.
The people who have the most influence on SO are not the ones most interested in using it for questions, but the ones most interested in improving their "score". It should be obvious that this outcome is both perverse and extremely difficult to avoid.
