In the '90's I had a mission that I carried out by offering answers to questions on CompuServe fora pertaining to Windows. In 1996 Microsoft decided to embrace and extend this by offering perks to the people who were most active. That program has been revised and renamed over the years. I wouldn't say that I succeeded in my mission, but I would say I don't feel I need to do such things personally. The people you are pointing out seem to need to offer you a solution, however off-point, and need you to accept it formally if you indeed find it to be a solution, and I speculate, seem to be paid and possibly try to make a living doing it now. A possible explanation is that Microsoft doesn't want to be obligated to provide online support any more than Google does. But they want to indeed offer online support for the time being, as casually as possible, and they are regulating some people by measuring some aspects of the support activities of some people.