Well I dunno about others but I'm both playing less and when I do play, on higher difficulty missions people explore and open caches way less than in the early days.

While technically not paywalled, for me personally it's definitely going to end up being like that. Down the line that's be fine for a live service game but it's a 40€ purchase and it's only been a few months, I'm not sure I'm a fan of this model in the long run.