Is Quora bad at practical (nuts-and-bolts) questions, such as "How do I fix this problem with my toilet?" or "How do I blah blah blah in iTunes?" or is this just my confirmation bias?

I think Quora can be OK at this. I remember finding a few answers about how to do blah blah in OS X and iOS 7. I also asked a question about how to do blah blah in javascript (because I don't speak javascript and probably should get around to learning it) and I got several good answers. The key to learning how to do blah blah is to know who to A2A. In my case, I A2A'd some people who knew their javascript and got me fast answers. See : BTW, the above linked answer no longer works for me because Quora has updated its code base, which is a problem with creating bookmarklet shortcuts, but it worked for months. I've seen a good amount of activity in the topic, and I think I could get some answers there if I needed it. I think as Quora grows, you get answers on fixing toilets and learning how to do blah blah.

I think this has to do with the fact that most people come here not for technical knowledge but for as you say " intellectual subjects, personal essays, relationship questions". I've read in way too many profiles that they don't like asking questions or answering questions which can probably done by a simple google search or one phone call to customer care. Also, such questions(and answers) wouldn't irritate me- you ask what you want to ask, but I have a feeling Quora isn't about that, to most people. It isn't about the simple questions. I hate seeing homework questions here (and im a student!) because the idea of Quora makes me think of learning something new or different or listening to a new perspective. Questions about technical stuff may not be very interesting but may be useful someday, so I wouldn't mind them but I don't really see the need. About the iTunes thing I agree, your feed is filtered in such a way that you generally don't see questions outside of topics you follow. That makes enough sense to me. If they don't filter your feed at all then you'll have to sift through a lot of stuff you aren't interested in which is extremely irritating. If you know stuff about iTunes and want it in your feed go follow the topic. As of now your only solution (i think) would be to A2A the right people.

You have subject expertise, but are not following those Topics on Quora, so Quora is broken? No, Quora is not bad at those types of questions, people are bad at them. Look at it this way. Let's say you were building a database of your customers, but halfway through, you stopped inputting their information. Then, when you needed to find out how many customers in a zip code you have, the database gives you incomplete or inaccurate information. Is the database to blame?

Sometimes specialized communities are better for some questions. With 111 specialized subsites http://stackexchange.com/ would probably better than AskMeFi (which is a great site) or Quora (which also has great merit). For specific plumbing problems, http://diy.stackexchange.com/ would be where I'd go. For specific iTunes questions http://apple.stackexchange.com/ would be the place to look. But the goals are different. StackExchange is intentionally a Q&A site where discussion and speculation are discouraged by policy. Contrariwise: I read really informative, mind-opening discussions about and just yesterday here and know of no site that would have given me the same depth of personal narrative that I got from those.

For a question of "how do I fix a toilet?" the answer usually requires a long conversation, and the answer is really get a plumber on it. I often hang around in the motorcycles section and can point out common faults of the make, but in reality, these problems can't be fixed virtually. A likely guess can be made, or a link to a manual can be given, but it is usually obvious stuff. I am not sure about there are no plumbers, Steve Black is a builder and will give general advice. You can get some good tips on cooking too and general design/decorating. Normally problems come in areas where you don't usually follow the subject. One thing I've found is professionals often a loath to give free advice, it does after all put themselves out of a job. Most people on here don't want to help "the opposition" so limit their advice to areas where they don't make money, or general "common sense" advice. I think Quora is biased towards Computing subjects and entrepreneurialism and marketing, rather than fixing kitchen appliances.

It has to do with what space Quora occupies in your brain. What you associate it with. I for one, don't associate Quora with programming questions (because that's not what I usually see when I'm on Quora), and so I go to StackOverflow for those kinds of questions instead, since that has the strongest association in my mind. And for trivial questions on fixing computer stuff, I've had the best luck with Google before, so that's where I go. The technology of the site isn't the primary driver, it merely reinforces it. I.e on Quora you have Blogs, which you associate with a certain kind of content. Whereas on StackOverflow you have programming markup, which makes it especially good for programming questions. The primary driver is content. If you wanted to let people know that Quora could be really good for programming questions for instance, you'd have to show them that it CAN be. So: a) Yes, you're right. b) It's this way because some content doesn't fit in with what else you see here, so you won't associate Quora with that type of content, and hence not add it yourself either. It's a reinforcing cycle. The content on Quora is largely determined  by the topics and the people they got in here in the beginning. c) The solution is to get a lot of content (critical mass) within those new topics, and promote it to people, and not let it drown in everything else. Simultaneously you'd probably have to get a lot of new and different people in here, that care about those new topics (more than they care about other topics), so they contribute and make it a go-to-place for similar people. d) I think Quora is nice as it is, for my current use. I do care about the problem though, since I find it interesting as well.

I'm speaking from the other side. I started out on Quora writing answers in technical topics, other than Science, Math, or Programming. Some of the everyday questions you giver examples of could allude to the topics in which I used to write. But here's the thing. Recognition is important on Quora, in the form of views, upvotes, comments and shares. The current demographic on Quora simply does not reward, or even acknowledge the effort put into answers in obscure topics. Maybe there are not enough people asking useful questions in those topics, or that Quorans simply don't care about answers to those questions. So I waded into some of the more widely-followed topics, writing a bit here and there, and got some recognition. After all that, I feel that the Quora community rewards: Presentation Agreement (i.e., taking sides which the reader agrees with) Rare, fabulous, moving tales of success, failure, or tragedy. Simple explanations of complicated things that would help one in a conversation between laypeople, but not much beyond that. The Quora community sees its content-creators as entertainers, and not primarily as problem solvers or experts. Don't get me wrong---many Quorans are no doubt world-class experts in their respective fields, but that is an appeal to credentials that makes their content merely credible, not helpful.