Is this how guys like Ramit Sethi and other blogging self help guys get away with selling shoddy quality products? You basically read their free material and have invested insane amounts of time, that you might as well fork over $400 a month for slightly better material.
I think that's on purpose. They want you to invest time in it so that the sunk-cost-fallacy prevents you from admitting to yourself that it's a scam. It's the same reason that many courses start with a free video "but first, a little bit of history" or something.