ISO standards cost money to develop, publish and distribute. Someone has to pay. The current system whereby users are requested to pay for the standards they use, not only sustains the development process but also, very importantly, ensures that the balance of independent vs. government, private vs. public interests can be maintained."
Whining about publishing/distribution costs for standards in 2011 is laughable. The only excuse for printing virtually anything these days is small quick reference cards, invoices and packing lists (mostly for shipping), and labels.
Most of the people that actually work on the standards are paid for their work by companies in the relevant field.
If the organization was running anywhere close to correctly, their costs would be limited to typesetting, some organizational work for meetings, and bandwidth. All of which could be trivially borne by modest contributions of the governments and corporations involved.
"Why aren't ISO standards free?
ISO standards cost money to develop, publish and distribute. Someone has to pay. The current system whereby users are requested to pay for the standards they use, not only sustains the development process but also, very importantly, ensures that the balance of independent vs. government, private vs. public interests can be maintained."
http://www.iso.org/iso/iso_catalogue/faq_standards_2.htm