that's nothing new. draft versions are usually released for free, but the final ISO standards have always required fees for access and the copyright for the documents belongs to ISO. a standard for the C programming language, for example, will run about $200. average developers don't usually need access to the standard, as they will be working with an implementation of the standard anyway (which should be providing its own documentation).

Many standards are also available via the national standards body of your locale (e.g. ANSI), often at a cheaper rate.