It wasn't about money changers, it was about the people selling animal sacrifices. The money changers just enabled them.

This is more explicitly laid out in Mark where it prohibits carrying anything through the temple.

That gets conveniently left out in Matthew where he copies from it as there's a bit of a theological paradox if it's Jesus's death that makes animal sacrifices pointless and he's telling people to stop killing animals to cleanse their sins while still alive.