> Gatekeeping is when a group tries to prevent others from participating in a field or activity.
And I gave a way in which charging a price does that.
I am open to the idea of being incorrect in this case, in which I apologise for misunderstanding, and concede that I'm missing the nuance but in my defence, I'm not a native speaker.
> Words get their meaning from how they're used in the wild, and dictionaries are descriptivist, not prescriptivist.
But I didn't explain that clearly. What I mean is that definitions are always imprecise because language is imprecise and dictionaries (or people) try to keep definitions reasonably short and simple. Dictionaries are trying to describe what the words really mean in the wild. They aren't the source of that meaning.
For example, if we look up Merriam-Webster's definition of "game (noun)", none of the definitions really work for a game like Solitaire without also including an activity like reading a book.
The two relevant definitions are
1. a physical or mental competition conducted according to rules with the participants in direct opposition to each other
2. activity engaged in for diversion or amusement
(there are a bunch of other definitions as well, like animals you hunt)
The second definition is too broad and the first clearly excludes Solitaire. If you were deciding what a game is based on the dictionary definitions, you'd either think watching TV is a game, or that Solitaire isn't. But that's not the case.
Charging money for products isn't considered gatekeeping. So from a descriptivist perspective, it isn't, even if it seems like it should be, because the word isn't used like that. Banning a group of people from an activity is gatekeeping. If mathematicians said only mathematicians can prove theorems and correct proofs from non-mathematicians won't be accepted, that would be gatekeeping. But they don't do that.
If you want to use a broad definition of gatekeeping that includes virtually all human activity, then the response to any accusation of gatekeeping could be "well, everything is gatekeeping". That road just leads to pointless and confusing conversations.
If you define any obstacle to an activity as gatekeeping, then literally everything can be considered gatekeeping and the term loses all meaning. Some people can't read, so offering the books for free would still exclude them. If you include an audio book, some people still can't understand the language. And both charging and not charging money for products would simultaneously be gatekeeping under that definition, since not charging places more financial burden on the producer. Not everyone can afford to print books and give them away for free.