[Pinbenterjamin]

I don't empathize with your viewpoint because, whether it's a web scraper, or a person, the work is exactly the same. There's no additional volume, or extra steps. We just emulate a worker.

We measure the value in FTEs, and when a researcher quits, we do not replace them if the appropriate FTEs have been reached with projects.

It's a major benefit to the business not only because we don't have to pay another employee, but we can reduce training costs, and costs incurred by mistakes. We can also adjust execution of one of these agents, which normally would require rearrangement of work instructions, and retraining.

These are public records, 90% of them do not have integrations for automated systems, and those that do, we utilize. They are typically search boxes with results. We are not circumventing any type of cost that would otherwise be incurred.

We do not log any of the results, store them locally, or maintain any of the PII with each search. If a case was searched 20 minutes ago, and comes up again, we rerun the entire thing just as a human would.

Finally, to your point about 'help me with my homework', I consider posting on the HN forums homework for this type of research. There are a diverse set of talented developers on here with esoteric experience. The fact that an article related to the work I do came up on here, I thought, was an excellent opportunity to seek advice and perspective.

[pault]

Don't be discouraged by the spiteful kneejerk reactions in this thread. HN is a diverse place and some commenters get triggered by an association with one of their pet peeves and launch into a rant without taking time to assess the nuance of your position. I've been the butt of this behavior a few times and it can be pretty toxic.

[floatingatoll]

Sadly, you are correct to have realized that many posters on HN are so naive that they will offer you $0/hour consulting for your for-profit business. Posting on the HN forums means you "don't have to pay another employee" that's an expert in the field. I can't do much to prevent this, but I don't much respect it, either.

[TeMPOraL]

What you call being naïve, I'd call being a good human being. Skilled professionals willing to freely share knowledge are a great thing. BTW., it's literally the foundation of our industry and the whole point of Open Source movement.

If it reduces market for some consultants, well, sucks to be them, they'd better find a different way of providing value. Not every value needs to be captured and priced. A world in which all value was captured and priced would really suck.

[danShumway]

I'm glad that sites like Wikipedia, StackOverflow, and HN exist. I don't think the world is a worse place because they exist, and I respect the people who post there.

This is the same attitude that says, "why would someone just give away Open Source software when they could build a SaaS business instead?"

[floatingatoll]

I don’t think Stackoverflow for “how can I avoid paying a municipality a reasonable public records fee” should exist, but I do endorse Stackoverflow in general. You’ll have to do what you will with that; generalizing my point to “all Stackoverflow” is certainly wrong, though.

[jimnotgym]

>Posting on the HN forums means you "don't have to pay another employee" that's an expert in the field. I can't do much to prevent this

Sometimes the answer tells you much more about what skills you need to be hiring. Sometimes they give you a lead.