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I am very disappointed with this as well.

The value of private was not the answer itself (which is basically what you are offering with public).  The value was the asking of a private, sometimes strategic, question and the development of an answer that could lead to an advantage over a competitor.

" what you just said is true if you did bring up a competitor's name"

Yes, exactly  The big value in private is being able to ask questions with detailed competitive information.  For example, asking a question about why our competitor ranks for a specific term, but we don't, even though we think we should.

i understand the scalability challenge with this (I have a payroll to make myself...), I'm just surprised that this wasn't anticipated as a potential issue when first offered.  It wouldn't have been hard to calculate the cost/time of providing this service long term.