The view from the industry is basically that STC was a bit behind the times, and was slowly dwindling in terms of reach and value. They still had some active chapters, magazine, and academic journal that provided value for folks, but membership wasn't as valuable as it had been.
They have been around a long time, and had a wider purview that WTD, focusing on many different types of technical writing. They had members in industries like Automotive, Engineering, and Aerospace, as well as Software.
The best way to think about them is something like the ACM in the software industry. They have been taken over by more current community approaches in various areas (eg. Pycon), but also still doing some more traditional stuff that adds value but isn't as relevant to day-to-day practitioners.
[0] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Category:Association_for_Compu...
At no point did it feel like anyone in the org could (or would) actually help me in the transition from grad school to technical writing work. It was a really disheartening experience. It does not surprise me that membership has waned over the years.
The STC, at least in my view, was several steps behind the times. It was a large organization that was too slow to adapt to changing realities.
Declining memberships, maybe companies not valuing technical communication as a separate field as much, the rise of LLMs all seem like possible contributing factors.
I feel sad that we are loosing the long form communication - deep manuals and books. When I started we had dedicated technical writers but then lost them along the way supposedly to save money. They then took other roles not necessarily shining in them while developers did a worse job and were loaded with yet another task. Technology allows for vertical integration of workflows and there is value in removing human to human transitions. But there was also value created in these interactions. Full stack, dev ops or getting rid of dedicated testers are other examples where we are stretching human ability and not always getting a better outcome.
Jokes aside, this is really sad news. I have heard about them several times and was rooting for them, even had plans to visit in 2026... :/
I hope their good educators get reassigned to places where they can make even more impact. We seriously need better education nowadays, technical or otherwise. I heard that they were too academical and not practical enough but even with that (and if it's true) it's still sad news.
I wish the people from there all the best in the future.
In my daily work today, I still rely on all those basic principles of technical writing.
As a "long timer" so to speak, I think eventually there ended up being a decline of pure "technical writer" jobs out there, and not too many people going into the profession.
And I have yet to encounter an LLM that can repeatedly poke an engineer or PM until they cough up the details you're after—let alone one that can do that without making an enemy out of that engineer or PM :P
