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Comment by 300bps | Hacker News Reader

What great evil did Experts Exchange do?

The very question that is asked is a straw man argument. Nobody is saying that Experts Exchange did some great evil (ex: genocide). What they did was build a business model based on taking from many and giving to nobody. Then to preserve that unsustainable business model, they used various underhanded search engine manipulations.

To me, they were jerks. When Google came out with the ability to filter domains from your personal results, they were the first (and only) domain I added.

Even to this day, they will show you the answer if you scroll through 5 pages of gunk. They didn't do any "great evil". They're just slimy and I get a bad taste in my mouth anytime I think about them. But at least they added that hyphen to their name at some point because for a while I couldn't NOT see it as ExpertSexChange.com.

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Personally I felt they made it difficult to find an answer. I get that they wanted to make money, but I felt like they could have done a better job on that end. But they were constantly filling up the first page of my search results. They were also the first (and one of few) domains I've blocked. When I did that, it made it easier to find an answer to my question. Do they deserve another look? Not really, they made a bad first impression and I've taken my business elsewhere. Those other businesses have suited my needs, so I've never needed to take a second look. I made up my mind, as did many other people, long before stackoverflow came along.

> What they did was build a business model based on taking from many and giving to nobody

I'm not sure where you get this. EE treats those answering questions really well, and nobody is forcing them to answer. Nobody forces EE's customers to pay for access to their content, either. Behind the curtain they actually have a lot of happy customers (and question answerers).

They didn't fit the "open source" model programmers like, but for the people who need advanced help with Cisco routers or for the experts winning trips around the world, they're actually not such a slimy company. Thanks for your comments.

I'm not sure where you get this. EE treats those answering questions really well

From Wikipedia:

At Experts-Exchange, users are awarded points for answering questions

Out of curiosity, what is the exchange rate between Experts Exchange points and reddit karma?

Wikipedia goes on...

Experts (those who have reached 10,000 points overall and maintain at least 3,000 points per month)[15] and subscribers get the benefit of using the site's search engine without limitations and no ads are shown.

What's the hourly rate on this work? Please explain how "EE treast those answering questions really well". Because it seems to me these people are doing work worth in the neighborhood of $100 per hour. You tell me how much they're actually making.

I'm not sure I understand your point. You seem to be thinking that people answering questions deserve to be paid - as if they're being forced into answering at all. Experts on EE are answering questions for the same reason users on SO are.

> Please explain how "EE treast those answering questions really well"

If you're a top contributor to EE, you get flown to really nice places and are treated like a VIP by EE. Not everyone reaches this level, but those who do get a really nice perk, in addition to the benefits of answering questions in general.

You seem to be thinking that people answering questions deserve to be paid

If I may first pay you a compliment, you are very adept at twisting words and building up straw man arguments.

What I actually said was:

What [Experts Exchange] did was build a business model based on taking from many and giving to nobody

Your response was then:

EE treats those answering questions really well

But we both know this isn't true. It pays the vast, vast, vast majority of question answerers in worthless or near worthless points. The average question answerer, including the ones that get flown places and "treated like a VIP" is probably actually getting less than minimum wage for their work. That's hardly being treated "really well".

So we come back to my original statement. Experts Exchange built their business on taking from many and giving to nobody. If you want me to add an exception of, "giving to nobody except giving scraps to the very top of people whose time they were taking to build their business on" I would be amenable to that.

I don't understand what getting paid for answers is for? They volunteer to help answer questions, most do this because they get that warm fuzzy feeling inside from doing a good deed and helping someone out, the rest for the free access to the site.

No one at SO gets paid to post. so why should EE pay them to post?

No one at SO gets paid to post. so why should EE pay them to post?

Maybe because EE expects to be paid to share those answers and SO doesn't?

Maybe SO doesn't have a paid staff to pay for, and has larger operating costs? without other sources of income to pay those

Are you daft?

http://stackexchange.com/about/hiring

> Experts Exchange built their business on taking from many and giving to nobody.

How is the Stack Overflow business model any different?

Uh... they give the answers to everybody?

My friend, I do not intentionally twist words. I'm just trying to wrap my head around how you can be upset that:

- EE isn't paying people money for the answers they provide

when

- those persons answering questions are doing so with no expectation of being paid in anything but points.

It's no different than Stack Overflow, but you seem to think otherwise. Just trying to figure out what you're getting at.

It's no different than Stack Overflow

You're being consciously or subconsciously obtuse.

With Experts Exchange:

1. People answer questions for free

2. People pay for the answers

3. Google and other search engines are gamed

The only thing that is the "just like Stack Overflow" is #1. The other two items are absolutely nothing like Stack Overflow. As I said, Experts Exchange takes from many and gives to nobody. Stack Exchange takes from many and gives to all. You really can't possibly not see the difference.

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