Publishing for money works by spreading the development costs over N customers. When N is large, you can spread the costs very thinly. That means better development and/or lower costs for each customer.

Your vision that each recipient has the right to break this compact just undermines the model. I really like that I can spend $20 at the theater to watch a movie that cost $100m to develop. And while I understand your point about HTTP, I would rather live in a world where costs can be easily shared fairly and efficiently. Yeah, some publishers will gouge me, but the market sorts that out.