Why isn't the C++ standard free?

As Bjarne Stroustrup wrote:

I guess that everything good ought to be free. However, it costs quite a bit to run a standards organization, to create a standard, and to produce and/or distribute copies. Therefore, the question becomes "who pays?"

The standards organizations cleverly finance the actual creation of standards by having them written by volunteers who are charged for the privilege of doing the work. That works reasonably well.

This leaves the problem of maintaining a standards organization, production of standards documents (for people who prefer paper), and distribution. It may seem a good idea for governments to finance this. However, people don't like to pay taxes, so governments have been increasingly unwilling to subsidize ISO, ANSI, BSI, AFNOR, etc. This leads the stadards organizations to look for sources of income to cover their costs.

Given that, I think the US$18 that ANSI charges for the pdf version of the C++ standard is reasonably cheap. If that's too much, get the free slightly-out-of date draft that the C++ standards committee issued for public comment (you can find links to both on my home pages).

One thing to bear in mind is that a standard is not a tutorial. Most people (incl. all novices) are better off with a good textbook. Experts who really need a standard are (by the standards organizations) assumed to be able to afford it.