Is this a philosophical, financial, ethical, metaphysical question?

I see that A LOT on Live Chess. Of course, this ponderent inquiry usually is derived from one of the Free Accounts who spend more time complaining, flirting, flooding, trolling, etc. than they do actually playing, learning, and/or enjoying Chess. Today, I upgraded from Gold to Platinum. I had less than 45 days left on my Gold account, but recently did the Computer Analysis on one of my games, which I incidentally LOST!!!

As I sat in the doctor's office waiting to be diagnosed with Bronchitis, *cough cough*, I was reviewing the game analysis on my Treo. I was instantly BLOWN AWAY *cough cough*.

I couldn't believe what I was seeing. Now, obviously, I'm not chess'avant and there may be limitations, errors, etc. in the analysis program. But *hot damn* did that computer analysis give me the Rosetta Stone I've been needing to decipher my inconsistencies, mistakes, and, YES, BLUNDERS!

--Sidenote--
Oklahoma City got an NBA team 'OKC Thunder' I've considered changing my login to OKC Blunder. November 30, 2008 I hit my high of 1567 and was signing "What a Wonderful World" everday; until reality set in and I dropped all the way to 1422 in less than 2 weeks.
--end of sidenote--

Here's what I learned from seeing the results:

• you can block threats with pawns, which incidentally are worth less than exchanging,
• you don't have to keep threatening the same piece when you can threaten more than one piece,
• you can play the position on the board and not the one in your head; because usually, they're very different

So here I am playing with confidence and doing extremely well. Then I go to analyze some more games; *BAM* Denied! Under Gold you can only two 2 computer analyses a week.

What a playa to do?

Oh look, you can upgrade and get 25 per week.

*HOT DAMN SAM I AM*

~And on the 7th day, God rested...and played Chess for the next 4 millenia~

So, why pay to play chess?

I don't know. But yes Virginia, there is a Santa Claus. I wouldn't pay to play chess. I would pay for a book on chess. I would pay for a chess board. So I guess, it's a matter of how you look at the board.

Do you see the colors, squares, and pieces?

Or do you see pins, exchanges, threats, openings, and mates?