Stack Overflow Careers

When I have some free time and I’m bored, I try to help people at Stack Overflow.  Recently the owners of Stack Overflow launched a site where you can post your CV, which are linked to your Stack Overflow account, and companies can search them. Nice idea. But the business model behind it makes it horrible. This blog post by Joel Spolsky actually made me write this rant. Stack Overflow is obviously doing very good at getting money from ads. People answering questions over there actually make them money, as they increase the value of the site. (They still display ads even to those people, which is something I also don’t get, but with Adblock Plus, I don’t care.) The thing is that they charge job seekers for having their CV searchable within the site. The official reason for that is that they want to ensure that everybody who has their CV listed there is actively looking for a job. If that’s so, why are they raising the price from $29 to $99? $29 should do just as well for filtering the people who post their CV “just because they can”. I have real trouble imagining any competent programmer (who actively contributes to Stack Overflow, therefore makes sure they get their ad revenue) would want to pay to get his CV listed on the site. It’s not about the money though, it’s about the principle. I wouldn’t pay for such a service, just like I wouldn’t send my CV to a recruitment agency.