Someone on Quora asked me this today and this was my answer.
I am- gradually- starting to feel okay about charging for my yoga classes. It’s cost me a lot to be a yoga teacher, and continues to cost as I have to pay for a venue, props, ongoing yoga training, publicity, website etc.. When I first started, my impulse, like many yoga teachers, was to give classes for free. Then I charged as little as I could to make it accessible to everyone. Until my students asked me to raise the fee because they felt embarrassed paying me so little!
Through all this, I haven’t changed my commitment to offering accessible, authentic yoga to my community. That is the heart, and the reason for what I do. The heart of yoga, as I understand it, is bringing together body, mind and spirit to perceive the divine unity and come to a more complete consciousness.
So, finally my answer to you would be that yoga which is shaped by market forces and trends and is motivated by opportunistic greed is unlikely to be authentic. Anyone who tries to “own yoga” by patents, copyrights and specifying regulations of which they are the sole guardians (I’m talking to you, Yoga Alliance) is likely to be inauthentic.
But nature will find a way. I came to yoga through a very diluted, syndicated yogalates practice at a gym and realised I was not satisfied with it; it led me to seeking out more knowledge about actual yoga. So the profusion of commercial yoga Studios means more people will have the opportunity for at least some exposure to the yoga way and may want to dig deeper.
The other consideration is that even the most commercial studio chain is very likely to have some sincere true yogis teaching within it, so there is another opportunity for people to come into contact with a more integral yoga practice.