there was an article i read somewhere, that showed 69% of total...

there was an article i read somewhere, that showed 69% of total nbn customers are on 50mbps or less.
This shows that quite a significant number of customers are choosing budget plans.
Combined with the superloop failed takeover and SLC's increased marketing craze, targeting abb, optus, telstra customers, this is clearly a market that is now "race to the bottom". Margins are getting tighter and humans/staff are the biggest operational expenses, aside from networking and marketing.
Wouldnt be surprised if they are developing an AI based level one support assistance for their chat system.
The only humans left running things, would then be mostly the development team and a handful of network engineers then!

SLC's budget brand is Exetel.
Telstra's budget brand is Belong.
ABB have decided to make use of their strong automated systems, recognising where the market trends are going and are likely adapting to the new trends for survival.

No doubt they will have customers switch to the budget plans, but if it stops the churn to a foreign provider, better to just lower the margins, than to fully lose the customer. Especially if they have the capacity.