I see what you're saying, but it's also a huge contributing factor of why there was such a surge of subscribers in the first place, so they missed their goal based on those generous expectations if that makes sense. It doesn't mean they aren't preforming well by missing their target. That's why I think more time is necessary to get a better understanding of where things are going.
Absolutely, they've put almost $80b into this venture just over the last couple years and we haven't really started to feel that in the service just yet.
The weirdest strawman with these discussions is the idea that one direction is explicitly right and the other wrong. GP can thrive and be a huge win for MS WHILE the traditional model moves on unbothered. It's not a either or. Subscriptions are nothing to fear, they could even offer a safe haven for unique experiences. This is never more true than if the "blockbusterization" of gaming continues at the current pace. When you have 10 or 15 games sucking up the majority of player time and money, the subscriptions might be a lifeline for different kinds of ideas.
More on topic, it will be interesting to see where Sony goes with their services. With almost 70% of their users paying annually, the PS4/5 download library is basically a $40/yr sub. How far can they stretch that, what kind of quality and variety they can provide, etc? Also, we don't know if the starting library is distinctly different from the existing PSNow library, or is this more of a rolling transition.