Why are transaction receipts free to request? But transaction records not?

When a transaction is processed into consensus, nodes automatically create both a receipt and a record for the transaction and store both for 3 minutes. Clients can query for either receiptor record to obtain confirmation that the transaction successfully reached consensus. As receipts are small and persisted for a short period of time, their impact on the network is not overly burdensome. Consequently, Hedera decided to price a query for a receipt for a transaction as free. Records carry more information than receipts and, depending on what triggers their creation, may be persisted for a longer period of time than 3 minutes. Consequently, there is a small cost to the client that queries for the record for a transaction.