Reality is finally dawning on many, no matter how much you want to champion one corporation as pro-consumer, at the end of the day, they are by very nature 'corporation'. Their only interest is getting your money, nothing is doing out of charity or morality.
Sony sell bazillions of hardware, and software, but their ultimate cash cow is PSN, mostly through PS+ subs. It's the exact same scenario for Xbox as well, they don't move as many hardware and software, but they do have a very large contingent hooked into their system through XBL Gold subscription especially in the light of fact that F2P MP games require it too. It just makes zero logical sense to lose all those billion of dollars for.... pro-consumer PR online?
Microsoft putting an end to selling 12-month XBL Gold membership, was seen by the hardcore as them pulling down the pay-wall altogether. I don't know if it's naivety or it's driven by plethora of MS affiliated influencers online playing into the gullibility of their fan base. Probably a mixture of both, but ultimately, what they have done is raise the price of XBL Gold membership, since you can't stack. In the end, it's all lining up to their goal of getting more people on GamePass. For those players who just play FortNite, Apex Legends, Warzone etc. either they can continue to buy 1 or 3 month XBL Gold membership at higher cost, or they can sub to Gamepass, which will in-turn have XBL Gold integrated for "free". I think, they'll hold out a little bit more before pulling down pay-wall on F2P MP games altogether. You ideally want your casual Fortnite, Warzone players to dip their feet into what GamePass is offering. But, all the noise around Halo F2P MP suggests it may be imminent.
However, it must be awkward for MS to know, that their most loyal consumers who buy their gateway hardware have to ultimately pay more to play online, while the PC user-base can avoid this scenario. It'll be interesting to know if MS remove the distinction between PC and Xbox GamePass in the future. Addition of XBL Gold for "free" to GamePass for Xbox users will probably help them navigate this awkward scenario. Nonetheless, I'm very curious to know how they handle this transition. It's in the making, there are many tricky scenarios, but that pay-wall to play online (except for F2P games) isn't going away.