Everyone is calling HF20 pay to play, and nothing could be farther from the truth.

It is the truth, even if I could justify it myself.

Granted, most of the outrage and apocalyptic gloom and doom has settled now that the cost of comments has been brought to a reasonable level, but wasn't that obviously going to be the case?

Too low a cost to eliminate automated bot comments.
Too high to allow genuine posters with less than 60 SP to interact the way other social media allows them and not even the way STEEM allowed them prior to HF20.
A mere edition of a post takes most users out of usability mode and into other occupations.

The concept of pay to play is simple. You are paying someone to use their service. Even if the service is technically free many users who want more are forced to pay.

To want post HF20 STEEM to function the way other social media does, or even just the way it did prior to HF 20 is to want more.
What does it imply about STEEM Hard Fork 20?

This tactic is known as Pay To Win, and it's not hard to see why Steemians would make the mistake of assuming that HF20 is a big step forward in the Pay To Win direction.

Payments help to win, but the restrictions of Hard Fork 20 are pay to play even for people whom do not care about winning.
They can not play it the same way that they play other social media in which a win is different from what it is on STEEM.

How much are we willing to spend on a video game anyway? Like $60. Anyone who spends that much on Steem right now will have more than enough RCs to interact. More importantly, those coins belong to them for as long as they choose.

How come neither Facebook, Google or Twitter hired you as a project manager or a senior adviser?
They could have been so much more successful if they adopted this pay to play philosophy.
Google employs pay to play for power users.
I am quite content with its free abilities.

Cost of decentralization.
Some aspects of STEEM are supposedly decentralized, but it is centralized.
A few people elect the witnesses due to the centralization of the ability to do so (STEEM)
A few people call the shots which spam will be generously rewarded, and which content will be denied rewards.
Now these people decided to charge for any humane use.
Those playing to win already have enough to play.
Those whom will be tempted to try to play to win and acquire the needed amount of STEEM, will find that they were too late to join, if they would not be told prior to it.
Most future joiners will consist of victims of aggressive pushers, minions of the pyramid scheme.
Had it not been for its centralization, it would not have been a pyramid scheme, at least not so obvious.

Resource Pools
...

....
In this chapter you assumed a hypothetical desire, and based upon it, you present it as a conclusion that the current state is not pay to play,
while mentioning a separate delegation market for RCs.
And this is not pay to play, according to you.

Instead, everyone with stake gets to pick and choose who they think will bring the platform the most value, and act accordingly. If someone is abusing your pool you can limit their access or completely remove them altogether.

This is a proof-of brain mechanic that will reduce spam, allow us to scale, and prevent waste. We clearly have the resources to onboard millions of users for free. Once those users acquire some stake we can onboard millions more all over again.

And how is it different from STEEM delegations?

Conclusion

Based upon what?
P.S.
I know I am dealing with a minion whenever I see a cheap Simpsons/Southpark/Cat/"cute" animal meme.