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Speaking to the general issue: When this happens, it's at least a little bit bad and often merits commenting, editing, or discussion.

kynan points out some disadvantages, but here is what I consider to be the biggest problem when answers that are initially different are edited and made similar:

It defeats the benefit of having alternative answers. Votes tell us what people on the site thought of as good answers. Lower-voted answers are still usually valuable. And anonymous feedback statistics (for 10k users who can view them) show it's somewhat common for lower-scored answers to be considered helpful by the "general public," as gauged by anonymous "Was this post useful to you?" responses.

###However, I don't think there's any single solution to this problem.

Instead:

• If posts can be edited further so they are both better than the last revision and more clearly express the unique points that make them valuable, and you're willing to put in the time and effort required for this (sometimes minimal but sometimes extensive), do that!
• If you're unsure if an edit was correct, comment and/or discuss it in chat. Or discuss it here in meta.
• Roll back or improve edits that incorporate information directly from other answers--even answers to the same question--without citing or mentioning the source in any way.

At a "meta" level:

• If you see a lot of this, please provide more information about the problem.
• If this only happens occasionally, it's probably not a major problem. Sometimes it can even be ignored.

Speaking to the general issue: When this happens, it's at least a little bit bad and often merits commenting, editing, or discussion.

kynan points out some disadvantages, but here is what I consider to be the biggest problem when answers that are initially different are edited and made similar:

It defeats the benefit of having alternative answers. Votes tell us what people on the site thought of as good answers. Lower-voted answers are still usually valuable. And anonymous feedback statistics (for 10k users who can view them) show it's somewhat common for lower-scored answers to be considered helpful by the "general public," as gauged by anonymous "Was this post useful to you?" responses.

However, I don't think there's any single solution to this problem.

Instead:

• If posts can be edited further so they are both better than the last revision and more clearly express the unique points that make them valuable, and you're willing to put in the time and effort required for this (sometimes minimal but sometimes extensive), do that!
• If you're unsure if an edit was correct, comment and/or discuss it in chat. Or discuss it here in meta.
• Roll back or improve edits that incorporate information directly from other answers--even answers to the same question--without citing or mentioning the source in any way.

At a "meta" level:

• If you see a lot of this, please provide more information about the problem.
• If this only happens occasionally, it's probably not a major problem. Sometimes it can even be ignored.

Speaking to the general issue: When this happens, it's at least a little bit bad and often merits commenting, editing, or discussion.

kynan points out some disadvantages, but here is what I consider to be the biggest problem when answers that are initially different are edited and made similar:

It defeats the benefit of having alternative answers. Votes tell us what people on the site thought of as good answers. Lower-voted answers are still usually valuable. And anonymous feedback statistics (for 10k users who can view them) show it's somewhat common for lower-scored answers to be considered helpful by the "general public," as gauged by anonymous "Was this post useful to you?" responses.

###However, I don't think there's any single solution to this problem.

Instead:

• If posts can be edited further so they are both better than the last revision and more clearly express the unique points that make them valuable, and you're willing to put in the time and effort required for this (sometimes minimal but sometimes extensive), do that!
• If you're unsure if an edit was correct, comment and/or discuss it in chat. Or discuss it here in meta.
• Roll back or improve edits that incorporate information directly from other answers--even answers to the same question--without citing or mentioning the source in any way.

At a "meta" level:

• If you see a lot of this, please provide more information about the problem.
• If this only happens occasionally, it's probably not a major problem. Sometimes it can even be ignored.

Speaking to the general issue: When this happens, it's at least a little bit bad and often merits commenting, editing, or discussion.

kynan points out some disadvantages, but here is what I consider to be the biggest problem when answers that are initially different are edited and made similar:

It defeats the benefit of having alternative answers. Votes tell us what people on the site thought of as good answers. Lower-voted answers are still usually valuable. And anonymous feedback statistics (for 10k users who can view them) show it's somewhat common for lower-scored answers to be considered helpful by the "general public," as gauged by anonymous "Was this post useful to you?" responses.

###However, I don't think there's any single solution to this problem.

Instead:

• If posts can be edited further so they are both better than the last revision and more clearly express the unique points that make them valuable, and you're willing to put in the time and effort required for this (sometimes minimal but sometimes extensive), do that!
• If you're unsure if an edit was correct, comment and/or discuss it in chat. Or discuss it here in meta.
• Roll back or improve edits that incorporate information directly from other answers--even answers to the same question--without citing or mentioning the source in any way.

At a "meta" level:

• If you see a lot of this, please provide more information about the problem.
• If this only happens occasionally, it's probably not a major problem. Sometimes it can even be ignored.