i'm mainly pissed about how i have to pay for something that has been free in 2 previous versions, so a free application is by no means out of the question. they actively thought 'hmm, we could probably make MORE money off of pokemon! all we have to do is specifically target people who have played our games before and voila, easy cash!' nevermind about how cheap it is, why should i even have to pay for this in the first place?
Okay check it
The reason you have to pay? Because it's not just a transfer utility. It's storage that any of your games can access, and that FUTURE games will access.
It's all stored in the cloud/servers that they have to maintain religiously so people can access their Pokemon and will need to continue to be around for the remainder of gen 6 and likely well into gen 7.
And it's $5 *a year*. Pokemon Box & Pokemon Ranch were, I think, $20 & $15 respectively; you have to be subsrcibed for 3 to 4 years before you meet/exceed the prices for roughly equivilant software.
The fact it also doubles as a transfer utility is
a bonus. And for people who don't have a second DS or 3DS this is suddenly a much more accessible and cheaper method.
AND EVEN ALL THAT ASIDE: There is a free trial period between its launch in December and January 31st where you'll be able to use the Bank for free.