No, because people aren't obliged to pay in order to own the token.  The developers typically fund their own projects.
Note that the upcoming hard fork was agreed to occur before Bitcoin Cash or "Bitcoin Gold" were devised (or certainly before they had agreed for it to happen).  It's not their responsibility that other developers have attempted hard forks before them.

I also wouldn't consider it "hijacking" - just developing a different version of software that people can choose to run or not to run based on their own thoughts.
In this case, that was not their intention.  Notably there is not going to be a premine in this fork, so the developers are not at an advantage to an ordinary Bitcoin holder.