Michael Madden,

Perhaps where you do searches, every one of your copies is available at the touch of mouse click and so it truly DOES only take "a second" to produce that copy. 

The counties I work in, any older copies are in extremely heavy, bound books. It can take (I kid you not) 15+ minutes to get a single page copied. You locate the volume, open it to the page, and then try to detach the bindings (which often requires hunting down a pair of pliers from the clerk - we are not permitted to bring such items into the courthouses with us).  Then separating and removing all of the pages from said volume to get to the page we actually need.  Then time waiting for the copier to be available, getting the settings correct for the size page our document came from, making the copy (and if we are in a courthouse where we have an account directly tied to the copier, if we make a mistake, or the machine glitches, we paid for an unuable copy), returning the document to the book, reassembling the book, returning it to the racks, returning the pliers.

The county only charges 50 cents to ME for that, but it took up an AWFUL lot of my time and energy. Now suppose that client wants copies of every old, book bound easement, restriction, deed, etc?  It's only 15 copies, so they should only be charged $7.50... but those copies used up 45-60 minutes of my day.  Even with the upcharge on what the courthouse charges, I'm STILL coming out behind if I'm only charging $1.00 page for these sorts of copies...