I wouldn't call it cynicism.

Web services started as the same open utopia. Once everyone was in they jacked up the prices so high it killed the initial consumer apps (eg. Google Maps and Reddit)

Nobody is giving access to their walled garden for the good of open-anything. It's what the VCs and stockholders demand and they're the ones putting up the cash to keep this AI hype funded in spite of it running at a loss.

Given they haven't put security into MCP yet, I guess they'll need to do that first before they move on reinventing API keys so they can charge for access and hailing that as the next reason the line will go up.