Charging for territories makes sense, as a business model for SN. I don't think territory owners should be looking at it as a business opportunity, at least for a very long time. However, it's advertised as something people can make money on, whether it is or not.
IMO removing all revenue opportunities until territories is built out further as a money maker would make sense to me. @k00b surely has insights into when a territory owner would make a profit, and I'm sure currently it's miniscule.
However, charging a lot of money is currently his way (I would imagine) of disincentivizing a lot of people just buying one and being disappointed. He's hinted at being surprised as many people bought into it as they've done. There could be other ways at making it a higher barrier of entry, such as user registration date, cowboy hat count, etc.
It's all hard and he's figuring it out, just giving my random perspective as someone that doesn't care about territories as a profit and will probably stop paying for my territory at some point in the future (6m-12m depending on where it's at)