That’s an illusion. You may succeed in making a fortune in the short-term by gatekeeping, but not in the long term.
One may argue it is their business model. But hey, isn’t that counterintuitive? The whole idea of commerce is to provide value in exchange for money. When did we normalize the idea of roadblocking as a business? That’s more or less similar to blackmail.
If you look closely at such pro-hurdle businesses, the only offering they provide is ‘access’. Access to information. Information itself is not valuable. It may translate into value.
The economic machine is a tried and tested model of value exchange.
In the short term, we may think we’re gaming the machine, but any business with a foundation of gatekeeping does not sustain the winds of time.