However, that was never very many people. Only the smart ones. Many would prefer to have shouted into the void at reddit/stackoverflow/quora/yahoo answers/forums/irc/whatever, to seek an "easy" answer that is probably not entirely correct if you bothered going right to the source of truth.

That represents a ton of money controlling that pipeline and selling expensive monthly subscriptions to people to use it. Even better if you can shoehorn yourself into the workplace, and get work to pay for it at a premium per user. Get people to come to rely on it and have no clue how to deal with anything without it.

It doesn't matter if it's any good. That isn't even the point. It just has to be the first thing people reach for and therefore available to every consumer and worker, a mandatory subscription most people now feel obliged to pay for.

This is why these companies are worth billions. Not for the utility, but from the money to be made off of the people who don't know any better.