Access to good real-time financial data from big name companies can cost tens of thousands of dollars in subscription fees per month.

In today's economy financial data is not practically that expensive to provide.

The price is kept high on purpose to appease big traders who want to ensure access to market data is artificially limited.

That this is not more commonly recognised as a scam is a communication failure on the part of humanity.

If information were a more directly visible input with the same priority as money, for example, I think this would be more widely understood.

There aren't good words for this, but "emergent conspiracy" comes to mind.

The circumstance is likely unplanned and its mechanisms are informally coordinated, but it nevertheless enriches a minority at the expense of the majority, like a traditional conspiracy might.

Instances of asset speculation ("distributed pyramid schemes") are similar.