Well, this is showbiz. The whole idea has always been to advertise an exciting show that “you absolutely must see today” and place it behind a barrier that you must pay to cross. How much you are willing to pay for it, what “it” is, not to mention if you will be happy with the entertainment is a very old question. “Joe average” has never been in the position to fully comprehend the economics. And those have always been very difficult to understand even for all the people involved in the production. There are always periods in which a select few acquire a superior understanding of how to extract the most value from that transaction for themselves. Today most of these people are software visionaries who realized ahead of time which way the wind is blowing. Is it a “front” is a tricky question because this has always been the way. Twenty years it was cable TV infrastructure and physical media. Decades before that it was a film distribution and theatre network. And then earlier it was having a theatre with troupes of actors and lighting/stenography technicians. And for most of human history, it was traveling with an exciting minstrel show from town to town. And it was always to some extent a rip-off ;)