Charging a lot for the data is self defeating. In order for the sport to grow, more people need to be interested in the sport. One measure of interest is betting turnover. And a proportion of betting turnover is usually used to fund the industry. In order to increase betting turnover, one strategy could be to make the data free and easily accessible in an automated, machine readable form.
I really do not care about the likes of DRF or Equibase and how long they will or won't exist. I think it is upon the industry itself to ensure this data is available free and easily accessible. Look at Hong Kong as the alpha example. Loads of free data, huge betting turnover, well funded industry.
You may not care about DRF, but it is the sole source for a typical horseplayer to get reliable information about the horses, without which, these players would have zero guidance and likely abandon the sport.
DRF makes racing data easily accessible. If it was left to the tracks, which are independent entities (unlike NFL/NBA/MLB), an horseplayer would have to compile past performances from dozens of sources. The fields of a single day's race card may have run at 30 or more individual venues, in aggregate. Even if that data were free (well, the result charts and replay videos are already free, so technically this is already possible) if would take a ton of work to assemble it all in a digestible format -- which the DRF does for 6 bucks.
I don't believe HK offers free data that is not available from American tracks. There is no API, the result charts are less detailed than American tracks. If info was so freely available to everyone, how would someone like Bill Benter gain such a huge advantage? Why wouldn't he replicate his methods in the US? Probably because the US makes MORE data available.
I really do not care about the likes of DRF or Equibase and how long they will or won't exist. I think it is upon the industry itself to ensure this data is available free and easily accessible. Look at Hong Kong as the alpha example. Loads of free data, huge betting turnover, well funded industry.