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I find it astounding the level to which people hate Experts Exchange. Calling them "sleazy" and "slimeballs". Where does all this vitriole come from? Are you a

by dools 16y ago

I find it astounding the level to which people hate Experts Exchange. Calling them "sleazy" and "slimeballs". Where does all this vitriole come from? Are you all feeling so entitled that anytime someone wants to charge you for something your automatic reaction is hatred? Here's the problem that EE solved (a long time ago): "How can I create a Q&A site that runs on a subscription, not an ad supported, model?". The obvious dilemma being that the content needs to be indexed by search engines which necessitates giving it away for free, but when people come into the site you want them to pay for the service. The solution of having people scroll to the bottom of the page isn't deceptive, it's just an imperfect solution to making people pay to use your site. The fact that you can get the answers for free at all is the anomaly - you're not supposed to be able to! There's absolutely nothing wrong with wanting to charge for anything. If it works, it works, if it doesn't work, your business fails. EE aren't breaking any laws, hell they aren't even breaking any guidelines. If you don't like it, you don't continue, there's a free trial. This isn't spam, it's not hurting or hoodwinking or deceiving anyone! This is just a paid service, get over it. When Mark Bao created a viral marketing campaign to collect a few hundred thousand email addresses and then sell them at private auction everyone here heaped praise on him like he split the atom. Experts Exchange is just running a business and charging a price. If their business sucks then it will die - admittedly there is a hell of a lot of inertia there now because they've been going for so long but WHATEVER! You can't just call people sleazy slimeballs because they're charging for a service rather than giving it away. Oh and for all you folks saying they don't promote their free signup page enough, look at the fine print below the pricing on this page: http://highrisehq.com/signup http://highrisehq.com/signup What a sanctimonious and judgmental crowd we have here at HN!

wilhil 16y ago
The whole point is, they used to be good, it used to serve a purpose... when they have answers low down or tried to hide all together, they were effectively spamming Google and forcing people to sign up /pay for an answer. It served a purpose in its time, but SO simply does it better now and EE haven't moved on in years. And as an "expert" I would rather contribute to a free to ask site helping the public.
- dools 16y ago
  I disagree with that definition of spam, it's more like "freemium". Pay for the convenience of not having to scroll to the bottom of the page? Or simply pay for the answer if you want it and you don't know about the scrolling thing - it's their right to charge for content. All they're doing is advertising that they have the answer and trying to make sure as many people as possible pay to find out what that answer is, because that's their business model. It's fine if they're irrelevant, it's fine if you'd prefer to be part of a stack exchange community, it's fine if you block them in Google or only search "site:stackoverflow.com how to shot codez" so you never have to look at them again - but the scathing retorts treating these people as valueless carrion who don't even deserve to be on the internet is completely unwarranted! Really, what I object most to is that people are attacking the characters of those involved and calling them slimy and sleazy because they chose a subscription based business model for their Q&A site. A valid decision that has obviously worked. It's not like they're Jamster ringtone club tricking kids into spending thousands on their phone bills to get an animated crazy frog singing the most insipid song ever created, they're just providing a service and trying to get money in return.

by dools 16y ago

wilhil 16y ago

The whole point is, they used to be good, it used to serve a purpose... when they have answers low down or tried to hide all together, they were effectively spamming Google and forcing people to sign up /pay for an answer. It served a purpose in its time, but SO simply does it better now and EE haven't moved on in years. And as an "expert" I would rather contribute to a free to ask site helping the public.

dools 16y ago
I disagree with that definition of spam, it's more like "freemium". Pay for the convenience of not having to scroll to the bottom of the page? Or simply pay for the answer if you want it and you don't know about the scrolling thing - it's their right to charge for content. All they're doing is advertising that they have the answer and trying to make sure as many people as possible pay to find out what that answer is, because that's their business model. It's fine if they're irrelevant, it's fine if you'd prefer to be part of a stack exchange community, it's fine if you block them in Google or only search "site:stackoverflow.com how to shot codez" so you never have to look at them again - but the scathing retorts treating these people as valueless carrion who don't even deserve to be on the internet is completely unwarranted! Really, what I object most to is that people are attacking the characters of those involved and calling them slimy and sleazy because they chose a subscription based business model for their Q&A site. A valid decision that has obviously worked. It's not like they're Jamster ringtone club tricking kids into spending thousands on their phone bills to get an animated crazy frog singing the most insipid song ever created, they're just providing a service and trying to get money in return.