I say that because they DO value it. What they don't value is the people who know the answers or will end up having to spend hours or days tracking down the answers, and although they like the reward of getting their issue resolved, they don't feel any need or responsibility for equivalent reciprocation.

In other words, it's not that they don't value the information or assistance they receive, they just consider us to be second class citizens who are better suited to scurrying about in the back halls 24/7 attending to their needs while they have rich lives in which everyone around them deals with issues they would have to use their brains and maybe more importantly, THEIR uber-valuable time to solve..

The question that keeps popping up in my head is this: Would you give free technical advise to your economic competition?