If one feels like the $1 minimum bet is so high, then they should not participate. Simple as that.
Gambling responsible, all gamblers know that, but they have different ability to control their finance and gambling activities. They are free to join or don't join the tournament, depends on their financial availability for gambling, and how they assess the tournament as interesting, potential for profit or not.
For that case (weekend tournament) with $1 min bet, I do agree with you that if $1 is too high so simply do not force ourselves to participate. However, as I've pointed out previously, the case is not for that tournament but for sports betting in general which has $1 min bet. I know there are still a lot of gamblers who do sports bet with bet amount under $1, usually they are trying to place parlay bet with high odds.
Community have demands and can raise their voice to the company for consideration, but if future tournaments apply same rules and conditions, Betpanda community have to accept it and move on. The company does not force any user to join their tournament and I think $1 is not too much with gambler or even cryptocurrency investor or trader.
I don't attack your suggestion that if applies can bring more joy to many users, but I am not surprised if it won't be approved by Betpanda team.