[manigandham]

Because contributing has no value unless your contribution is actually good, and often there's a lot of crap that's negative value because it's wrong or off-topic or spam.

Having a barrier greatly helps overall quality.

[narag]

Having a barrier helps manageability of the site, so from a business' perspective it's been good, indeed.

[jfoster]

Don't forget that a site being able to be managed & stay in business is also good for users.

[narag]

It wasn't good for the users whose questions I wasn't allowed to answer, but you have a point.

[CRConrad]

So downvote the contributions, then -- but you can't do that if they can't be made in the first place! Read-only site for me too.

Then again, same stupid "earn points before you can post" system here on HN too.