ISO doesn't pay to develop standards, they assume others will develop the standards.

Historically, the purpose was to pay for printing & distribution. That makes no sense today, but that was its historical justification.

That’s what I’m getting at. The committees are generally funded by big companies who basically sign the rights over to ISO. ISO then charges you hundreds of dollars for a single PDF of a standard (which may contain over a dozen).

It reminds me of scientific journals that do nothing but charge money for other people’s work. It reeks of rent seeking.

That seems like a great use for taxes. I suspect the economic benefits from the easy accessibility of the standards (just imagine the cost of the approval processes to buy the standards and handle access, plus the cost of the standards remaining inaccessible to smaller players) would outweigh the financial costs.