Patent license fees are not necessarily onerous. The original Ethernet patent is a good example. The license fees were low - $1000 [0] and it became a de facto standard. Token Ring was a competing network technology with considerably higher license fees [1]. Patent owners for subsequent Ethernet standards started out with similar terms but then started shaking down licensees [2].

[0] https://books.google.com/books?id=qTkEAAAAMBAJ&lpg=PA52&ots=....

[1] https://books.google.com/books?id=OFCXnqlSFKwC&lpg=PA709&dq=....

[2] https://www.ftc.gov/news-events/press-releases/2008/01/ftc-c....

Edited to fix formatting