My take is that was the plan all along.

Once people won't be able to think anymore and business expect the level of productivity witnessed before, will have no choice but cough up whatever providers bill us.

What plan are you using?

I'm on the Free tier using Claude exclusively for consultation (send third party codebase + ask why/where is something done). I also used to struggle to hit limits. Recently I was able hit the limit after a single prompt.