Maybe I’m in a minority here, but I think gatekeeping is totally fair. It’s not my responsibility to help people arrive at conclusions/realisations when I’ve had to work hard to get somewhere.
I do a lot of location portrait work and often get DMs from photographers asking where I took certain photos. I just ignore the messages. I do lots of research and spend time and effort to make sure that I get the results I want!
I basically don’t go out with the sole intention of photographing people, it just so happens that most of the photos I take generally have people in. If I find someone particularly interesting, I will ask them for a portrait. Most spontaneous ‘street’ moments for me tend to have a human element. Example enclosed. Whether the identity of the person is ascertainable doesn’t really concern me. It is more a case of whether I feel I’m exploiting someone (which I never do), so never take photos of the homeless or people in precarious situations.
But you’re thinking of it as ‘competition’ whereas I don’t. I don’t engage with it, I just want to do my own thing. I’m not actively saying ‘no I won’t tell you’ but rather just ignoring it. If I wasn’t managing to break into a particular type of photography (say concerts), then I would email every venue in my locale, reach out to tens of artists, approach community music projects etc. I wouldn’t just put it down to ‘gatekeeping’.
Not trying to sound dickish but I learn by absorbing information in my own time - I seldom use other people as a source of improvement (other than looking at other people’s work online etc).