SE wants to see how far they can push the players. Slowly but surely they will win the war of atrition.

Why not just add this to your already profitable subscription service? Because people will pay regardless. It's just sad that the player base is responsible for this if we weren't all just willing to bend over and accept these practices we might be enjoying this stuff as added value to our subscription.

I'm unsure how anyone can actually defend this as a consumer.