When I first started making money on the internet, I tended to join survey sites because if you qualify, they paid more than just a couple of cents. But as others have found, that is a mighty big "if"; I tended to hardly ever qualify for surveys... So then I started to only continue with those survey sites that paid something when you didn't qualify. It was a little better, but I was still not making much money as I was still not qualifying for much. But after I found some more legit sites, like FC, I've stopped doing surveys for the most part. If I do try for a survey, it is usually because I have only a dollar or two away from being able to cash-out but only a few days left before some of my earnings start to expire. And I think that surveys are getting worse... I agree that if someone completes the first few demographic questions and start to get into the meat of the survey, they should pay the person. I think some really do cheat their survey-takers by essentially finishing the main survey questions and then disqualify the person after they have gotten all of the answers they want.
On the flip side, I've noticed that FC has an offer for PineCone surveys.... I will attest that they are very legit and probably the best survey site that I've found. You may not get as many surveys as on other sites, but you do get paid for the surveys that they give you (actually I think they have some of their internal surveys that they use to match the survey to the takers for which they won't pay... But those were usually pretty quick to take, and I'd rather do that and ensure that future surveys will be well suited to). They've even given me some product-testing surveys where they'll send out a sample of some product that they want you to try out for a period of time, and then complete a 2nd survey about your experience in using the product. Those are the best! They not only pay you for both the initial survey as well as the follow-up survey, they also provide you with a product to try; sometimes they'll even let you keep the product after you've completed the survey.