HN user
I think about this from George Santayana's perspective: "Those who cannot remember the past are condemned to repeat it." I feel like we need our past recorded (good, bad, AND ugly). It keeps us civil and humble.
I like how this contest shows that anyone can ask questions that previously only Google, Microsoft (Bing) and a handful of 2nd tier search engines could ask. Now if we can just get a simple query language for it all. I could then pump in $100 in quarters, ask my question, and wait a couple hours. Isn't this what the information ask was supposed to get us?