I'm inclined to agree with you. It's B.S. when sites allow Google and / or other search engine spiders a full view to get the content indexed, then proceed to deny access and hide said content behind a paywall when human beings discover it via said search engines.
In fact, I thought Google had a policy that sites must show the same content to end users as to the web crawler. Anyone else recall their position on it? Are these policies actively enforced? If not actively enforced, why not?