The feature creep is a feature, not a bug. They want to be in a perpetual state of early access. They realize that it brings them more money than actually releasing the game and everybody being disappointed.
Just think of the hype of Cyperpunk 2077 before launch and after launch. Before launch, people would be willing to sacrifice their first-born child to play the game. After launch, the hype completely evaporated into scorn.
Based on what? Distributing numbers in a big database doesn't infringe on copyright, and downloading a web page or image doesn't either.