Why do titled players even get free premium membership?

I seriously don't understand this, unless someone can provide a reason that I've missed.

Going off the sort of features that Premium provides, such as Chess Mentor, Tactics Trainer, games archive and performance history, video lessons from masters, why exactly do the lower rated players who NEED these resources to improve more quickly have to pay for them, whilst the titled players who are far more experienced and in all likelihood cannot learn very much from them get them for free?

This confuses me.

It's a motivator to get titled players to join the site. Expert players like them improve the value and credibility of the site, so they are rewarded for joining. A good decision on chess.com's part, if you ask me.

Having titled players on the site adds 'gravitas' to the site, induces other players to join, and thus is a "win" for the chess.com community. Since there's no real cost involved to chess.com providing these memberships, and it likely helps increase membership, they do that as a very inexpensive marketing method.

It also encourages people to play more chess so that one day they could be titled and get a free premium membership.

Kingpatzer has a really fine (and enjoyable) vocabulary. That too adds "gravitas" to the site.

So that they will play chess on this site, so we can watch the masters at work? Nah, that doesn't sound right, since you can play for free.

So that they will type brilliant posts, answer questions to our posts? Nah, I rarely see that happen. There's one IM who posts a lot, and answers my questions. I like him.

To make chess.com look good, by attracting titled players to this site? That is the answer.

I know. Don't listen to the answers from titled players. Just follow my random topics, and you will learn more from me than from any titled player, since I get really good players answering my questions.  Sometimes Dan Heisman will post in my topics, shoot me an e-mail. I like Dan. We are both from Pennsylvania. How is that for some random thoughts?

I appreciate that it attracts titled players to the site, but my point was more that it seems strange that Premium is offered to them when they can benefit from it far less than the players who really need it. As in, it must be a bit of a slap in the face to players who really can't afford Premium, and think, "Gee, I'd really like to be able to use all these resources that would really improve my game." Then they see all the titled players who have them for free, and probably don't use or learn from them anywhere near as much.

I guess it just seems a bit unjust to me, but I definitely see the point that its better for Chess.com as a whole if it ultimately results in more people using the site and higher prestige.

Chess.com is here to make money by providing a service. Absolutely nothing wrong with that. In chess.com's judgement, one of the ways to draw more people is by having more titled players here. It is the equivilent of giving a diva a pair of shoes from your new line. The diva doesn't need new shoes, but she helps promote the line.

Do I feel slighted because they gave an IM a free subscription while me a middling club players has to pay? Not at all. I looked at the benefit and decided that chess.com's price was worth it.

And if chess.com gave their services away to those who needed it, they couldn't maintain their servers.

Frankly, being a person who grew up before the internet became popular, I see this as a great value. I literally have thousands of dollars in chess books that are (mostly) irrelevant because of what I get from chess.com for under a hundred bucks. This site provides so much value, it is worth far more than the cost. And if someone disagrees, they are not obliged to pay for it.

Why then should the titled players pay for a useless resource?

A point being missed is that many titled players make at least part of their living teaching chess. 

Giving them free access to chess.com is not unlike a publishing house giving professors free books. It's a way to get the teachers to direct students to the product.
 

When I consider the thousands and thousands of hours of mostly unrewarded work that go into the making of a titled player, I have no problem seeing them get a relatively piddling perk such as a free premium membership. Their presence raises the level of the whole site, gives the rest of us something to aspire to, and makes us feel as if we're playing on a site that's a serious player in the online chess community.

Additionally, titled players attract titled players. Right now ICC has the preponderance of GMs, but the many additional features and intuitive interface of chess.com, to me, make it the superior site. The only thing lacking to make it a world-class playing site is the presence of a lot of GMs. Free memberships might just make it possible for us "patzers" to one day tune in and watch live games from the world's best.

To me, it's a win/win situation. And I for one don't mind my premium $$ going to subsidize those who have already given a large part of their lives to the game.

Yes, Grandmaster titled players are not going to spend much time on this site if that have to put up with the advertising of a non-premium account I suspect, and I think that may be a large part of it as well. As chess enthusiasts, we should be proud of titled players, you should not complain that they recieve payment for their services. Chess is their career.

@OP: The implication that titled players don't have much more to learn about the game of Chess is, truth be told, ridiculous. One may argue that lower-rated players have more to learn about the game than titled players. However, I think most titled players would agree that they have a great deal yet to learn about the game. Accordingly, the features given for free to titled players are most useful to them.

Good point whirlwind, even a Grandmaster of 60 years experience can always learn more. In fact it was the use of Chess Analysis and Chess Engines and continuous study and his games that Garry Kasparov was able to hold his title as World Champion for 20 years!!

Keep in mind a lot of the titled players contribute to this site by writing articles, doing videos and also people like IMpfren are helpful with breaking down games that people post.

+1.

Well even I don't like the feature, it's actually kind of stupid