There is more than a little hypocrisy going on here.
The argument that people are not sharing is a spurious one. If I ask a question and I don't get a reply I assume that is because I have either asked a question that no-one who has logged in can answer, either because my question is not brilliantly formulated or because it is touching on an arcane area that no-one has experience of. I don't then keep bumping it up the forum. If someone asks a question and then immediately posts a "I've figured it out" post, then what exactly do you want them to share? The page number of the manual? The module from their app? The former can be found by yourself, the latter is unlikely to be extractable without a lot of work. If you didn't contribute to the solution then you don't really have any 'right' to know what that user did.
That said there are posts asking for fully formed solutions (e.g. Has someone got a copy of a complex system that they can give me). Those requests are never going to get a response because such a request is "Please do my work for me so I can profit from it".
To complain that Mark makes materials available at a cost is exactly the same as asking for that fully formed solution - Mark hosts a conference every year, which requires collation of materials, coordination of presenters, location sourcing, venue rental, catering organisation, a/v equipment rental and at least one evening function. To then complain that he charges for the work that he and others have put into the event is effectively saying "Please do my work so I can profit from it". Why should Mark bear the cost for your benefit. Anyone complaining that there is a cost to the materials has obviously not turned up to the community event. So you are complaining that the person working absolutely the hardest to create a community is not creating a community? That is perverse in the extreme and if the end result is Mark pulling out of organising the conference then slow golf clap for you, killing the community that you are so anxious to grow.
On the subject of "growing community", by attending conference I've tapped into some great resources who I am now in regular contact with and I am less and less inclined to come back to this board. This is for a number of reasons and none of them are related to people's willingness to share or otherwise.
Bulletin board software is not well suited to building a knowledge base. When I have suggested that posts for next release features be placed in the Wish List board (an extremely minor request) I get told "I rather like it here because it gets more views" - a deeply narcissistic and not community spirited response. You may have three hours to trawl for information, I do not. Good information design is the core of any knowledge base which requires user adherence to taxonomy for fast retrieval. So that's one reason I come here less and less.
The way certain users interact on here is high handed, arrogant and dismissive. There are certain users who are abrupt and rude in dealing with requests. Honey catches more flies than vinegar. I'm fed up seeing rude rebukes to users for failing to ask the question in the "correct" format. I am also appalled by the name calling that a certain user resorts to and having been on the receiving end of it has made me less interested in using the forum and instead rely on my own network.
As for reciprocity, that seems like it is self filtering. If I feel like I am doing someone's work via numerous questions then I am perfectly at liberty to stop posting replies to that person. Likewise if I spend a period of time responding to another user's question only to find that they have ignored my help and then immediately started a new thread to ask pretty much the same question without any acknowledgement then that is another reason to be less inclined to use the forum. Similarly when I have provided rough and ready examples of functionality (i.e. Enough to demonstrate the issue) I've received extremely insistent demands for updates or bug fixes which is frankly an abuse of my efforts to help.
My final point on this would be "How does this post help my brand?". Not just this thread but any post. Arrogant responses, rude and brusque questions and refusal to play even the minimal effort in using what we have in the way it has been designed, all degrade the value of this forum and reduce my desire to be part of such a community.
