There seem to be a lot of topics where people could find out for themselves

There are plenty of people who will ask others for information they could find for themselves. They just don't want to bother. But it's also a way of starting a discussions here, so it's not always just for points.

it may be a little bit of both. some people maybe don't know how to search on the internet, or they may have tried to search and didn't get very good results. i think alot of people do it though for the money

Since the point of most of us coming here is to earn money and not to necessarily learn anything, I'd say there's your answer! I've asked all sorts of questions here I could have found elsewhere online, but that wouldn't have paid and it's always kind of interesting hearing from real people and not finding a generic answer in some abstract form floating through cyber space. I enjoy a good discussion too... so those are my reasons for posting here.