I agree. You get what you pay for. If you go to a website that promotes trading software and you can immediately download a demo and pay a few hundred $$$ through an online merchant to upgrade instantly you obviouisly get nothing of value. Serious software is expensive and developers usually require signining documents that restrict use. Mike Barna asks 60K for his genetic programming TSL and he is too picky who gets it. There is no demo of TSL. Michael Harris won't even reply to people who use specific webmail providers and do not apply using their real name for a demo of his Automatic Pattern Search. Just two examples, there are a few more.
You do an awful lot of promoting of your service/software/whatever it is while it is closed to new members. Creating a sense of exclusivity is a good marketing tactic (e.g. madoff).