This is just appalling

[Neophyte]

That is literally incentivizing them to develop expansions...
And that is literally incentivizing them to develop content updates. Mechanics... Systems... Animations... Items... All content.

SE orders them to develop expansions and they pay for it. With their own money.
It's not your money anymore, nor do you have a contract with them about what it has to be used for.
And it's up to SE to make sure that enough people buy the expansion and buy playtime to make their money back and as much extra money as they think they need to do whatever they want. Therefore they pay for content (updates).

If it's not enough content for you, it's up to you to quit. But has ammount of free content really changed?

Our subs fund content.
That's how money works.
They don't throw the bank notes into an incinerator once the sub ticks over.

You pay your sub to play the game. From the point they have your money and you can connect to the server and play the content for your paid days, you're even.
They don't own you anything beside making you able to connect to servers and play whatever content they want to give you.
You don't have to decide about (now) their money. And they don't have to decide about your playtime anymore (unless User Agreements you agreed to allow that).