About Truth or About Points?

Hi guys and girls,
I haven't been a member for long but I've noticed that alot of what ATS is about is seeking Points more than seeking the truth.
Introducing a points system on a site such as this I feel is discriminatory and sort of childish and places some people in a competitory frame of mind resulting in pointless and repetative threads.
Also creating a Really Above Secret forum and refusing entrance to the truth seeking public unless u have a sufficient amount of points or bought your way in is just plain mean spirited profiteering.(they cant say they need that money to stay afloat coz they could get by just fine without it. e.g. they have ad sponsors and they could sell mechanise.
Their staff works for free as they should working for a truth dispenser website).
It just makes me think or a bunch or kids in a treehouse all telling gossip to each other and the new kid rocks up and the conversation stops. He asks how their all going and asks Whats everyone talking about today and they all say"Not alot. We'd tell ya but u just havent known us long enough, but I tell ya wot. You give us $20 bucks and we'll fill u in."
I just thought that in reality if u searched long enough for the truth, it would come to you freely and without discrimination.
Does any other member feel to same in this regard or wot?
Please Mods don't take this too much to heart as I don't mean to offend but I would like a believable explanation without getting verbally blasted.

There is no option to buy your way into RATS with actual money?

RATS has a point entry cost to stop it from being spidered by search engines or internet archiving bots from logging it. As well as to keep an area that ATS members can post things of a more sensitive nature that they dont want any random web surfer to be able to view.

Thanks for the response Kano.
But why can't a regular MEMBER at the very least view(not respond to)the topics and responses.
Surely that would be harmless, or is it the phrase "U can't handle the truth!).
Cos theres no truth I could not handle and thats the truth.

Well it would kind of defeat the purpose if anyone could just register then view it all. As they could then start threads about it in other forums.

Theres the reassurance aspect of it so people know when they are posting in RATS not just anyone can see it. RATS would be useless if anyone could register and view it.

Fair enough, although seeing it from outside the box it just seems strange that a website against governments withholding secrets from the general public, also does the same thing.

Its more a way to get more information for our members to analyse. If any big conclusions were reached they would become public. But it is a good way to encourage people to post information they may have that they would otherwise not post in public.