It's democracy in context. Golem has requirements to participate just like the US has requirements to vote.
[0] https://www.economist.com/graphic-detail/2020/01/22/global-d...
> Oxford Dictionary has a second definition of "democratize" as "make (something) accessible to everyone", which is the sense in which this word is being used.
But if someone has to pay for X, then you're only making it accessible to everyone with the money to pay for it, which is not everyone.
If a service increases the accessibility of something that was previously only available to a smaller subset of people, then it can be said to be "democratizing" that service. I don't think it's a particularly good word to use, but I don't get to decide that. As we can see, decrying how words are commonly used just distracts from the discussion, just like when people complain about the word "serverless".
We have the definition, it's right there in the Oxford dictionary. Let's just accept it and move on to discussing the actual topic.
Yes we have a definition, but it's being misapplied in an irksome way. Doubly so since it's a self-application by some company's marketing team. Let's not torture that cherished definition to try to defend their misapplication.
And frankly, if being able to pay for computing power is "democratizing" it, it's already long been democratized.