seems like a way to slow down competitors more than anything. if they offer generous terms to sources of high quality data, they can anchor pricing out of reach

seems like a way to slow down competitors more than anything. if they offer generous terms to sources of high quality data, they can anchor pricing out of reach for most others or maybe even snag exclusivity. plus there's a high likelihood they were scraping and cleaning this data anyway. a formal agreement puts that effort on the publisher's side, letting them cut cost, complexity, and the potential for bad data.