the only international speakers who can afford to do this are the ones who are sponsored by big companies which pay their travel and time to speak at those WCs

One of the companies that can afford this is Automattic, who seems to have an urge to rule the (online) world. They're doing a lot for WordPress software (which they use in the core of their business and therefore their support also profits themselves). On the other hand it seems they want to monetize on the community. While this is not necessarily a bad thing or wrong, it is a doubled edged sword.

Changes in Movable Type's licensing in 2004 certainly had a part in WordPress becoming so successful.

Loyalty of a user group or community might be strong (especially in the case of WordPress), but it is never unlimited.

Trying to overreach the community will lead to a fork of the software and a split in the community. While this danger might not yet be predominant, in my opinion, it certainly is real.

In my understanding Movable Type never recovered totally from their license change even after they changed it back.

The company behind Mambo lost Mambo to Joomla! (and other forks) after changing the license.

There are certainly other examples. I don't want to mention here, because they're not relevant.

It seems very unlikely to see something very similar thing happening to WordPress, although I suspect other ways than a license change can have a similar effects on community members getting the feeling of being taken advantage of.

It seems to me that Automattic and Matt himself are trying hard to get revenue out of WordPress product and community (investors always want to get a ROI).

What is going on with Jetpack, "ad space" for hosters on wordpress.org and changes in policy like this one (concerning WordCamps) are giving me the impression that decisions are not primarily made with the good of the community and users of WordPress in mind, but in respect of potentially most profitable options for the "Benevolent Dictator for Life", his companies and maybe the investors.

Hopefully I'm wrong. The "official" goal should stay and become "democratizing publishing"?