I see many free sources of information available, either online, through libraries or in person eg freeBDM, micro fiche etc. My research interests are in Queensland, Australia for the past 130 years and England before that.

I have seen the many advertisements for ancestry.com and similar sites. Everything seems to work seamlessly and quickly.

Why is using an online service like Ancestry.com better than me simply travelling to libraries, state departments, individual sites and doing Google searches? What is the value in using a paid service instead?