Why are the stock market quotes delayed by 20 mins. online?

When looking online at stock quotes, I always noticed the disclaimer at the bottom of the page that stated how the quotes are delayed by 20 mins. Why is that?

Public Comments

1. Cost. You have to pay for a live feed.
2. You can get streaming quotes; there isnt always the 20 minute delay. most people dont need real-time streaming quotes, so a lot of sites don't use the space.
3. The exchanges sell their stock feeds. This is valuable information to active traders. The deal with the people licensing the live data is that they will not redistribute it to anyone who has not also paid for their own license. I get live feeds over the internet, but my broker pays the fee for me on condition I give him a certain amount of business each quarter, of I have to reimburse him. After 20 minutes, the numbers are considered old news, because short term traders have already done there thing by then.
4. Because Real Time Quotes are very expensive. Only Bill Gates offers Real Time Quotes for FREE but he is the second richest man in the World. Visit MSN Money if you need Real Time Quotes for FREE.