Edit: I see now the article is about Australia. And the price is higher, but converting to USD the new price is still less than US $15.49 which I feel is fair. It costs me about $13.50/month in electricity for plex.
How is the standard plan a bad value? It's $15.49 for 1080p no ads. I dropped 4k a while ago because they went stupid on the price, and I will never use ad supported. If they made the ad tier free, I'd still pay the $15.49/month. Standard plan hasn't been hit with the last several price increases, which is why I still think it's a good value, and why I'm still subscribed.
I'm sure with the way things are going Netflix will end up pushing me away eventually, but they haven't yet. Dropping standard would cause me to cancel. I also have the Disney/Hulu bundle for $20 and plex for anything else. I could easily get anything on Netflix on plex.