I share in your angst over the situation. Here in New York alone, there are other counties that are offering similar yearly rate packages - Westchester comes to mind - for about a sixth of the price. Same level of access.

New York City offers it for free for four of the boroughs, and it includes documents indexed back to 1966.

I have a feeling that that price will be significantly reduced within a short period of time, as it is not beneficial to ANYONE in the title industry except for the Suffolk County Clerk's Office and whatever company is getting paid to create the service.

Further, companies like AIS, and RPTdata are working on creating a system of their own. Should this happen, the county will have to drop their price, as AIS' and RPT's indexing will more than likely be better and cheaper.