Online games are different because you control the hosting and the service has much higher upkeep. Don’t try to apply the same shenanigans to single player games. Also pissed me / pisses me off that they started doing this Borderlands 2+

But then they say,

Despite the massive backlash and more than a decade of memes, Horse Armour DLC’s popularity was proven by the wallets of gamers. While Bethesda was being flamed for releasing the paid content, the numbers don’t lie, and gamers were actually very interested in paying for the DLC

Their main market focus is on whales now. They make it very clear, they see the Horse Armor DLC as a success story.

I don’t know how people there are like me, but I have forked over a lot on TES:O that I will no longer ever fork over again, and I regret having fueled their foray into single player. I will not preorder TES6, and I will have to wait for discounts to begin applying to their new franchises. As someone who was deep into TES lore, I will no longer care about TES6’s monetization or their attempts to tie into and guide players into TES:O.

But whales… Whales never change.