[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.