PACER should have been free from the beginning. Gatekeeping legal information for profit (even if only used to supplement appropriations) isn't only a problem at the federal level. In many states you need a commercial subscription to even read court opinions and statutes, let alone search. Localities in most places rely on commercial publishers to archive the text of ordinances, which only those with ridiculously expensive subscriptions can access. The digitization of everything had just begun when I retired, but the handwriting was already on the wall. The contrast with the widespread availability of technical doc is staggering: and reminds me of why I changed careers.
Technical docs are better but far from perfect. For example, could you please link me to a copy of the C++ standard? It's ISO/IEC 14882:2020, if that helps.
Those are not technically the actual standards, but they're pretty close. But yes, I too dislike the fact that ISO standards are paid for. You know what bugs me the most? ISO 9660, the standard behind the .iso file format. It's been published in 1988, and today still costs roughly 130EUR to buy...