I agree - this has been going on for decades. I personally have been involved in "volunteer" online support for over 20 years now myself. I started out on CompuServe, and still provide almost daily online support for users. Microsoft has its Most Valued Professional program, Novell has its Novell Knowledge Partner Program, etc. Both of these companies, along with many others, have known for a very long time that volunteer support for their products is a huge benefit to the community, as the people "living" with the products often have insight to problems that aren't immediately apparent to those "behind the curtain" so to speak.
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I agree - this has been going on for decades. I personally have been involved in "volunteer" online support for over 20 years now myself. I started out on CompuServe, and still provide almost daily online support for users. Microsoft has its Most Valued Professional program, Novell has its Novell Knowledge Partner Program, etc. Both of these companies, along with many others, have known for a very long time that volunteer support for their products is a huge benefit to the community, as the people "living" with the products often have insight to problems that aren't immediately apparent to those "behind the curtain" so to speak.