Disregard TechCrunch; Use Google First. Always.
Controversial as always, TechCrunch gets our attention this month by questioning the ‘Google-it’ mentality. And we’d like to not only refute things like this, but go all the way back to Socrates and lay out our direct, irrefutable line of logical statements which leads us to this path.
Proposition One: Nobody owes you an answer.
When you have a question, you are imposing on another person to do you a favor. There is no law, nor moral obligation, for anyone else to answer your question. That’s at all, whether Google exists or not, whether you can find the answer on Google or not. Both Google and people are going out of their way to help you for free.
Proposition two: The only motivation people have to answer your question is to do something kind.
That’s it. Invisible-hand-of-the-marketplace or not, every time a human answers another human’s question for free, they are practicing altruism. It might have the secondary assumption that you’ll ‘pay it forward’ and help other people, or the feeling of obligation that the answerer is paying it forward, or because helping the questioner helps the answerer indirectly, and so on. But all answers start with a desire to help.