Inaccessible Standards...

I am interested in the ISO standard 20022 aka UNIFI (Universal Financial Industry Message Scheme), and one assumes that the people who wrote the standard are interested in making it as widely known as possible. However, if you go to iso.org and search for the standard, you discover that the 5 relevant documents which comprise it cost a total of CHF 588.

Am I the only person who thinks that this inhibits the spread of the standard? Even worst, it encourages people to develop something else which is freely available.

I understand that the people who develop standards need to be paid and that the process of standardisation is long and wearisome. But I recall the Internet boom of the 90s, which – for all the bad press it has had in retrospect – has left us with that vibrant and indispensible medium which is the modern Internet. That boom was only possible because of the vast stock of freely available standards which had been stockpiled over the years: surely this is evidence that freely available standards help the digital economy to thrive?

Wouldn't making standards freely available lead to easier adoption? And therefore to an opener and more competitive digital economy?