For-pay Web content is information terrorism and should be banned (experts-exchange.com, etc = evil)

Any computer programmer who has ever googled an error message (for some reason, especially Microsoft error messages) knows the annoyance of running into an experts-exchange.com kind of website that has EXACTLY the question you're wondering about, "Help, I have error X" -- but then when it comes to the answers to these questions, it touts "I have 6 expert replies to this question, just sign up now!"


How wrong is that? You're using google against me! Helpful information like this yearns to be free, but you're telling me I have to pay in order to get my question answered? Here's another one by justanswer.com.


I just cut my finger. I actually did kind of want to see what the answer was. But what awful copy to use in this case. "This Answer is Locked!" Wow. OK, so you're saying, I'm bleeding all over the place, I am worried as heck about my health, and you want me to bleed all over my keyboard typing my credit card number so that you can make a buck?

The sad thing is almost every answer to any question on these sites can be found readily elsewhere. I would never pay into these sites, and I am annoyed that I have to wade through this cruft in my google results. I just feel sorry for the poor schmucks who don't know any better and pay for it. As a business, it's effective. It works. It makes money. But ultimately, Google pagerank should ban these guys on principal. They shouldn't even appear in the first 10 pages of my search results.