A single snapshot of an ever-changing database is the culmination of potentially years of research and payroll and system development that API consumers precise

A single snapshot of an ever-changing database is the culmination of potentially years of research and payroll and system development that API consumers precisely didn't and don't want to do, that's what gives the dataset and thus API value. The price that captures that value would have to be much higher in the model where you only need to access the database at some interval (let's say weekly), and that's not necessarily any more palatable.