Recreational Outrage

I was reading something on the internet recently - exactly what it was escapes me, and it's irrelevant.  The author was talking about some group of people he dislikes, or disagrees with, and said (I'm paraphrasing here) that "the time has come to rebute them!"  It took a moment, but I figured that the author must have meant either "rebuke" or "refute," mixed them up, and shat out that gem.  But I looked it up, and, lo and behold, it really is a word, though I still think the author got lucky.  Hell, the word has little red squiggles underneath it as I type this update.  Then my eyes seized on the little bit that I've highlighted in this image.

Yep.  Usually, Merriam-Webster dot com won't define the word, since it's in the premium, unabridged, paid dictionary.  But for this trial period, lowly plebeians like myself can learn all about the secrets of rebute.  If I like it, well, I can pay for a subscription, and enjoy the definition of rebute, and 300,000 other premium words, anytime I please!

As one might expect, my first, knee-jerk reaction was indignation and fury.  I mean, are they serious?  This is 2012, goddammit, and you want me to pay for information I can find in the dictionary?  This was followed by a deep sadness.

I feel really bad for Merriam-Webster, and Britannica, and companies like that.  Hundreds of years in business, how else can M-W possibly make money anymore?  Not only can I find just about any bit of information on any topic, at a moment's notice, whenever I want, I have become entitled to it!  The very idea of paying for information like this is utterly laughable.

It's just like pornography.  Porn used to be sacred.  Over the course of his teen years, from about age 12 up, a boy would pore over books and magazines, looking for a stray nipple, scour the library (what's that?) for sex instruction books that might have a stray diagram of the female reproductive system,and watch scrambled late-night cable transmissions, dick in hand, desperate for some identifiable female pube action.  And now, within milliseconds, he can be watching Anal Black Shemale Public Fisting, if he so chooses.  Where's the fun in that?  Where's the love anymore?