If someone asks a question dealing with plugin X or Y, the default response is to ask if they've been to the support forums of plugin X or Y, as clearly those are the best places to get the answer.
In the case of Woocommerce and other Woothemes plugins/themes that isn't always an appropriate answer, as their support forums are paid for, and the person asking may not be in a position to pay, or may have inherited code or sites that use these themes from someone else.
The stance of Woo itself is rather hostile to this situation, here's the founders stance:
So I say, fuck it! I’ve personally stopped helping these users on technical issues (pre-sales questions are fair game obviously) and have also instructed my Support Team to be more ruthless in this regard.
http://adii.me/make-customers-pay
He makes the point:
True customers WANT to spend money with you. They want to spend that money, because we (as humans) are inherently wired to reciprocate the value that we receive. True customers also understand that you have a business to run here, with bills & salaries to pay. Heck, they understand that they are running their own business, making money off your product / service and as such they should most definitely be paying you.
While I agree with this sentiment, this doesn't stop the horde of Woo-product name here questions on this site that people are expecting to be answered.
What then is the appropriate way of handling these kinds of questions, and how should the normal stance be explained when the user is in this predicament?