There is nothing inherently problematic about charging for API access, it's the fact that the price they've set is ludicrous, something like 25 cents per thousand calls when you'd expect it to be more along the lines of 4-5 dollars per million calls.
It's like someone buying a free parking garage, letting mopeds park for free, and charging cars five hundred dollars a day for parking, and then, instead of just being honest and saying "Fuck people with cars no cars allowed," saying that the car drivers are at fault for wanting to use a more full-featured vehicle that takes more space
lol, that's the Baader-Meinhof Phenomenon, you go around town doing your errands and someone mentions that there's a bear loose and you're like "I haven't seen a thing" and then the next day the bear is following you around.