I dont understand how you came to think that. What about the cost of hosting and serving the html forms (cpu and bandwidth), processing the content update requests, storing the resulting data structures? What about the marketing costs of making the brand known both by individuals and companies? The wages associated to any of the operations i have just mentioned?
I agree there seems to be a problems with means and investments: if I invest to create a website with valuable data, and anyone can come and scrape my data and start their own or a competing business, riding on top of my investment, isn't that a disincentive to me?